Family & Education

Meet Syndi Zook.

THAYER HOUSE

Syndi Zook is the SASH Coordinator at the Thayer House in the Burlington North End and organizes and facilitates a number of programs in health and wellness for the residents there, including how to access technology. She works for Cathedral Square Corporation, which is a non-profit organization that develops housing for low income senior citizens all across Vermont. Syndi has been working with older adults since the 1980s with a stint as the director of the Lyric Theatre Company.

Syndi has always loved working with older adults and feels very comfortable in this setting. She explains that many older adults choose to move into senior housing because it “takes a huge weight off their shoulders” since they don’t have to worry about maintaining a home anymore. In particular, she loves to work for Cathedral Square Corporation as it provides affordable housing for older adults. She also loves to listen to the real stories that older adults share based on their life experiences.One aspect of Syndi’s job is to provide various opportunities and activities for the residents at the Thayer House. As technology is becoming more important and prevalent, Syndi decided to reach out to Technology for Tomorrow (T4T) in the summer of 2018 having found the T4T contact information on a resource list at Cathedral Square Corporation. Syndi points out that “we are at a crossroads with technology between elderly who have never touched technology and seniors with great technology skills from previous life experiences.” As such, it becomes critical to provide various levels of technology education services to senior housing residents.

Syndi continues that “T4T provides this opportunity and that the services are greatly appreciated by the Thayer House residents.” Syndi points out that the 1:1 tutoring service is very popular but that some group workshops also have a value when the topic is of interest to a larger audience.

Syndi explains the importance of T4T’s services in helping seniors avoid the typical social isolation that can occur when leaving home, and often family and friends, behind. T4T helps by providing immediate and customized technology help for individual needs as well as group activities for socializing and connecting. These activities are important aspects of senior life and housing today, as technology really changes lives and can transform the way of living.

Acknowledging this, it’s important for residence coordinators to understand the value of technology and training to create and lead effective programming. Syndi continues that it’s challenging for senior housing coordinators to be involved in programs such as this due to coordinators being extremely busy. However, she emphasizes that technology training is a critical aspect of senior living so it must be a priority for coordinators. This even extends to knocking on doors to inform residents about the technology training opportunities available.

Syndi adds that understanding their cell phones, tablets and computers better helps senior citizens to avoid scams and fraud as those are big concerns for seniors today.

Syndi concludes that the Thayer House will continue to collaborate with Technology for Tomorrow for technology training since there is a demonstrated demand and value in the services to the residents.

Alzira Agostinho

My name is Alzira Agostinho, originally from Mozambique but now living in Vermont. This is my story and how I ended up in Vermont. Before coming to Vermont, I was a Catholic Sister for five years. However, I decided to leave the congregation of Sisters because I did not want to be part of that group any longer. After that, I started searching for a job. Eventually, I was hired as a teacher. I taught math and social studies for four years. I was then promoted to be a principal at a primary school (elementary and middle school). I also served with the ruling political party “FRELIMO” as a member of a consulting committee in our district. After that, I was working for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) malaria consortium. That’s when I met my husband as he was a teacher at a secondary school (high school) in the same area that I was working in. I was officially married in 2012. At that time, my husband was relocated to the United States as a refugee. I could not accompany him because I did not have the proper visa . Once my husband arrived in the U. S., he applied for our reunification. The reunification process was very long. It took a little over five years for me to be reunited with him in America.

First, I had to travel to Johannesburg, South Africa on four separate occasions. The first time, I went for an interview at the U.S. Embassy. Then, I had to go twice more for the medical check-up and vaccination. The fourth and last time I went to South Africa I was able to obtain and pick up my U. S. visa. The U. S. immigration services required me to go to South Africa because the U.S. embassy in Mozambique does not provide visa services for those who wish to enter and reside in America. In March 2017, I finally had my U.S. visa in hand. I left Mozambique on March 24 that same year and arrived at a New York City airport on March 25. My husband met me at the New York City airport when I arrived and we drove all the way up to Vermont. It was a long trip, about 29 hours from Mozambique to our final Vermont destination.

Now, I am finally here in Vermont together with my husband. As soon as I arrived in Vermont, I started to attend an English class at O’Brien Center in Winooski as my native language is Portuguese. My English class teacher is Sherry Star. Sherry is very patient and concerned about her students. In addition to English class, I also started working at City Market. I am a grocery bagger in the City Market store in the South End of Burlington.

Since late 2019, I am also learning about computers and technology with Bjorn from Technology for Tomorrow. Computer skills are very important in my life because if I know how to use a computer, I will have more opportunities in the future. For example, if I go to college, I will need to use a computer to write my research papers. If I get a job promotion, I will need to use a computer. There are many things one can do online such as checking the news, doing banking, researching library books, and looking for jobs if knowing how to use a computer. Having sound computer skills, I can accomplish all that and more.

Thanks to the technology education services provided by Technology for Tomorrow, I have been able to learn such skills. In summary, combining English language learning with technology training is essential for New Americans according to Jennifer. She concludes that utilizing technology lessons to help make the language comprehensible to English language learners is a very effective technique, made possible through collaboration with T4T, now and in the future.

Meet Jennifer Borch

MEET JENNIFER BORCH OF THE U. S. COMMITTEE FOR REFUGEES AND IMMIGRANTS (USCRI)

Jennifer Borch is currently the Education Program Coordinator at the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI). She is located in Colchester, Vermont where she manages educational programming for New Americans settling in Vermont. She has spent the past 20 years in language education in both the United States and abroad, and has developed language and cultural education projects and facilitated teacher training in several regions and countries around the world. Jennifer’s areas of interest include service learning, virtual cultural exchange, technology integration in the classroom, and girls’ empowerment training.

Jennifer is a key member of the USCRI Vermont and Technology for Tomorrow (T4T) partnership to bring English language and computer skills training to New Americans. These new skills are essential to refugees who arrive in the United States. The training is structured to allow these students to gain computer skills as they practice English and learn about and grow into their new community.

Jennifer emphasizes that technology skills enable refugees to stay connected to family members they may have left behind in their home countries and help them to communicate and make essential connections in their new culture. In addition, technology skills enable New Americans to apply for jobs, communicate with schools and health care providers, and navigate websites of community organizations and service providers.

“Our experience with T4T has been wonderful,” Jennifer points out. T4T is very flexible and is truly interested in helping students accomplish their goals. She continues to explain that T4T is willing to customize its teaching to the language levels and learning objectives of the classes she is working with and that students love having hands-on practice using the computers T4T brings to class each week. They are especially enthusiastic to embrace a new, virtual world as it becomes accessible to them.

Jennifer states that through T4T training, New Americans are gaining access to essential information on the Internet, as they find and navigate websites that are important to their daily lives. They are also beginning to develop workplace technology skills that will be valuable to employers. Another very important factor for parents is gaining an ability to keep up with their own children, as computer classes give them a window into the virtual world their children are discovering and provides them with an awareness of the power (and some of the pitfalls) of the Internet.  Gaining basic computer skills is an important step along the path to self-sufficiency for New Americans.