Program Description
SAIL is a volunteer based, non-profit, secular organisation that provides free English support & community services to members of the Sudanese refugee community in Melbourne and Sydney. SAIL offers tutoring to approximately 450 members of the Sudanese community and has a volunteer staff of about 350 people including over 300 tutors.
Commitment & Duration
Weekly from Mid – February to December,
Each week on Saturdays for one and a half hours, between 10.30 am and 12.30 pm depending on the campus.
If you are not available on Saturdays, you can also join SAIL’s team of volunteer librarians, cooks, administrators or public relations representatives.
Community and Tutor Talks occur every five weeks. A range of professionals speak at tutor in-services and skill-renewal opportunities. For the Sudanese community, SAIL offers Community Talks designed to inform the community about issues pertinent to them including housing, health, migration, tracing lost family members and job-hunting
Who we look for?
SAIL tutors need to be friendly, patient, reliable, flexible and willing to understand their students’ needs and unusual circumstances
Application Details
To become a SAIL volunteer, sign up for an induction tour by visiting the SAIL website www.SAILProgram.org.au and following the link “How Can I Help”
Contact Details
Follow the link to the SAIL Web site: www.SAILprogram.org.au
Nik Tan (Over-seeing Co-ordinator)
Email: info@sailprogram.org.au
Telephone: 03 9679 3272
Locations
Six Campuses in VIC:
- Altona,
- Glengala,
- Dandenong (2 campuses),
- Footscray (2 campuses),
- and Seven Hills in NSW.
Testimonial
“Because I love it! It’s colourful, crazy and chaotic, and it wouldn’t be the same any other way. For me, Saturdays are always a surprise, but mean a lot of different things. Meeting up with my student and the other students I’ve got to know means being greeted with unreserved enthusiasm and is inevitably an hour and half of whirl-wind paced energy, and a good reminder of what it was like to be a 10, 11, 12 year old girl again! It’s a chance too, to listen and be reminded of what other people have been through. For me, they put a very real and personal ‘face’ on all those news reports that it can be too easy to tune out from.” – Brooke C, Tutor at SAIL
