Michael

Refugee and immigrant students may not have ideal environments in which to study for high school. But with a quiet space and some support for assignments and exam study, school work can dramatically improve. That’s the philosophy behind the Brotherhood’s Homework Centre, which is run after school at the Fitzroy Library in inner Melbourne with the help of volunteers such as Michael Kennedy.

‘When I first got involved I had just gotten back from travelling in Africa’, Michael explains. As a career engineer, Michael thought helping out with maths and science was ‘a good way to give something back to kids who came here as refugees’.

Students who are in years 7 to 12 come along after school and Michael  says they’re usually ‘all pretty bright intelligent kids and quite enthusiastic’ who are ‘looking for a bit of confidence when it comes to answering problems’.

They may also often lack a computer, access to the internet and other educational materials at home, and even a quiet space to study. Many of their parents can’t help them with their studies because they aren’t fluent in English. Students from refugee backgrounds have also often had to deal with disrupted schooling before they came to Australia.

The Homework Centre and its valued volunteers help provide these teenagers with access to the sort of study environment, tutoring help and confidence building that all students should be able to enjoy as a matter of course, at a crucial time of their lives that sets the scene for adulthood.

As well as quiet study areas, the library also makes computers available to students. But Michael says there are less obvious, but important, benefits to students that lie in having a role model: ‘someone who is out in the workforce or working in the city and gives them a link to that’.

Michael’s employer is GHD, an international engineering, architecture and consultancy firm. It and several other companies support their staff members’ involvement in the Homework Centre, and a number of GHD employees volunteer at the centre.

Michael says many of his co-workers have been interested in volunteering but ‘don’t know how to go about it and take the next step. I just say: “Righto, let’s just go along one night.” And those that do end up doing a term or two terms.’