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This summer over 50 TWC students reached out to immigrants in the metropolitan Washington area tutoring young Ethiopians and Latinos, helping Latin American domestic violence victims obtain visas and volunteering at a Hispanic festival.

They were all participants of the Immigrant Rights Civic Engagement project. The education component included presentations by speakers from the Asian, Latino and African immigrant communities as well as an expert on immigration policy.

Several Spanish-speaking students volunteered with Mil Mujeres (one-thousand women, in Spanish), which helps victims of domestic violence and sexual assault obtain visas in order to remain in the U.S. In addition, students visited Mexican and Central American consulates to provide information about Mil Mujeres’s legal services.

Laura Facundo, who is originally from Colombia, remarked: "I really enjoyed working with this group. I felt like I helped give hope to people who have been unjustly treated in their lives. When I return to Florida Atlantic University, I want to volunteer for an organization just like Mil Mujeres.”

Justin Selner, from the University of Alberta in Canada, tutored two Ethiopian children—Dawit and Melat—at the Ethiopian Community Center. “I practiced conversational English with them and helped them with reading, writing and vocabulary. At the end of the semester we celebrated by visiting the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery.

[View photos of the event on our Flickr channel]