On a living stipend from the Corporation for National and Community Service that amounts to less than minimum wage, AmeriCorps volunteers spend 40+ hours a week, 52 weeks a year serving the low-income community. In a year-long term, a member will endure financial hardship on par with those they serve. They attend off-site training on a regular basis, help organize and execute large scale events, and work daily with clients whose needs would overwhelm even those who are paid a decent wage. This is what they sign-up for, but why?
Toni Rupe, AmeriCorps Supervisor at the Center for People in Need and a former AmeriCorps VISTA, thinks it’s pretty simple.
“They have a passion for their community,” said Rupe “They are the heart and soul of the Center,” said Rupe. “Without them, we wouldn’t be able to serve half the clients that we do.”
AmeriCorps Supervisor Toni Rupe brings her experience as an AmeriCorps VISTA with Lincoln Public Schools to bare at the Center for People in Need.
In other words, each AmeriCorps volunteer is invested with real responsibility and value. Whereas many jobs pay better, few can give access to make a real difference against real problems; and Rupe is in a unique position to understand.
“(My time as an AmeriCorps volunteer) helps me to relate to the poverty piece, which is one part of being in AmeriCorps that is overlooked by the public,” said Rupe. “Every day you have to make choices based on your financial standing. I have a lot of empathy for our members that have children and families they have to support on that income.”
Ultimately, AmeriCorps members would be volunteering their time with or without AmeriCorps. The call to serve their community overwhelms the financial burden.
“Most importantly, almost all of our AmeriCorps members continue their service once they leave our doors,” said Rupe. “They live in their communities and they’re helping the families even after they leave here.”
Sadiq Traikhim: Doctor Honest
Dr. Sadiq explains higher education options to his Social Adjust class.
Dr. Sadiq Traikhim is an AmeriCorps volunteer at the Center for People in Need who specializes in Social Adjustment for refugees and immigrants, particularly those who speak Arabic. He is a man of quiet and scholarly contemplation. He answers each student’s question with a measured and thoughtful response. His voice never peaks in frustration or fades in dismissal. Students and staff alike trust Dr. Sadiq.
The Arabic word for ‘truthful’ or ‘honest’ is Sadiq ( صادق). He lives up to the name.
“He’s quiet, but he engages everybody in very meaningful conversation,” said Rupe. “He inspires a lot of our employees to be better and to always improve.”
The Center’s 2015 holiday survey indicates that 33% of our clients are foreign born, many of whom speak Arabic but need help with English. When Dr. Sadiq moved to Lincoln permanently in 2013, his reputation as a man with answers came with him. Arabic speaking families from across Lincoln flocked to his doorstep asking for help with mail translation, procedural issues, or job assistance. As many as six families a day would seek out Dr. Sadiq, and with good reason.
Though he’s earned the title of Doctor of Civil Law from Cairo University in Egypt, he almost never insists on the title’s use. Still, those who know him refer to him as Dr. Sadiq out of respect. He has written 16 books. All are published in Arabic and most were printed in Egypt. The subjects range from the history of mass suicides and world religions, to court procedure and building maintenance warranties in Iraq.
Like many immigrants and refugees of similar education, his advanced degrees are not recognized at American institutions. Never discouraged, Dr. Sadiq sought to serve the refugee community in Lincoln, with which he had a personal connection.
When the opportunity came in 2015 for Dr. Sadiq to serve through the Center’s AmeriCorps program, he jumped at the chance. To him, he was already fielding an informal and unsupported Social Adjustment class out of his house. Now he could do it with AmeriCorps and CFPIN’s resources at his disposal.
“I found AmeriCorps at the Center for People in Need,” said Dr. Sadiq. “The main goal is to help others, to help refugees. So I said ‘Ok, this is my game’, and I applied.”
He’s the first to admit that his scholarship does not find much use in his class. Iraqi and Egyptian Civil Law simply doesn’t help in Lincoln Nebraska. Even so, Dr. Sadiq found a way to bring his knowledge to bare.
“I cannot take off the cloak of the lawyer,” said Dr. Sadiq with a slight smirk. “I always talk about penalties. If you don’t file your taxes, what are the penalties? I always focus on these.”
Refugees are inundated with new facets of life to consider. Dr. Sadiq’s class addresses many of those concerns. For two weeks, they meet for two hours every weekday. Dr. Sadiq insists the information in his class is crucial to new arrivals.
“I wish that all the new refugees, when they step on American soil, would go to this class to understand all these things before they might make any mistake in their life in the United States.”
Dr. Sadiq receiving his PhD in Civil Law from Cairo University in Egypt (2010)
Social Adjustment covers topics like the law (of course), Nebraska history, social conventions, culture, identity theft, filing taxes, parenting, employment, education, and more. One subject that often bewilders students is credit.
“(They will say) ‘what does that mean, building a credit history? Scores?’ These are new concepts to many refugees,” said Dr. Sadiq. “Some people have been here for 2 or 3 years, and when you ask them about their credit scores they will tell you ‘oh, I have $1000 on my credit card’. They are confused between credit cards and credit history.”
With more students comes more questions. Those questions inform his curriculum, which evolves over time to encompass more topics. If he hears the same question often enough, it’s obvious that it is not an isolated concern, but a community concern.
“When they have these questions, I have to go search and investigate to get them an answer the next day,” said Dr. Sadiq.
Some topics are introduced not because of the profound legal or financial implications, but because to ignore them could coax a living nightmare. Bed bugs, for example, are relatively new to this part of the United States, and completely unheard of to many refugees. Dr. Sadiq teaches about bed bug prevention and extermination in his two-week course.
Social Adjustment has grown through word-of-mouth, with more students seeking a basic understanding of American life. As it grows, Dr. Sadiq sees his service, and the programs at the Center for People in Need, as a crucial stopgap.
“The Social Adjustment classes achieve success day by day,” said Dr. Sadiq. “(The goal was initially) to teach 89 people a year…I have been here for six months and the number has exceeded 200. How come? Because when people attended my classes for the first time, they told others that this class is very good and very interesting with good information.”
The detail and precision he puts in to his curriculum are equal parts habit and reaction. His own experience as a new American, having given his Oath of US Citizenship on April 30 2016, compels his service and clarifies his purpose here.
“(One who serves his community) is a happy man. His hobby, his happiness, his pleasure conforms to his job. I believe that I’m happy because what I’m doing now is what I like. It’s my happiness to serve others.”
Dramane Boko: Big on the Inside
“I hope to help a lot of people. This is my first goal”- Dramane Boko
The offices are silent and dark at 7:30am on a Monday, except for one sound: the tinkering of computer keys echoing from row of cubicles. AmeriCorps volunteer Dramane Boko seems perfectly at ease, almost meditative. He’s getting ready for his day with some studying and silence. It’s a matter of time until his exuberance brightens the darkness and pierces the morning quiet.
Like many of the AmeriCorps volunteers at the Center, Dramane is relatively new to America. He comes from Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), a small country in West Africa. Does Dramane miss Côte d’Ivoire? Yes. But he brings an energy to every moment, even the smallest conversation. It’s almost as if wherever he is, that’s exactly where he ought to be.
“Life in Côte d’Ivoire was not hard for me,” said Dramane. “I lived in a family that wasn’t rich and wasn’t poor. We lived a good life. Even in the 1990s Côte d’Ivoire was one of the good countries in Africa because we had a lot of food and farms. It was only around 2002 that our particular crisis started… It was because of this that I went to Ghana.”
He moved to the United States in 2014 and found his new home in Lincoln. His volunteer work in HIV/AIDS education and gender based violence at the refugee camp in Ghana set the stage for the kind of work he wanted to do here; to help people and serve his community.
Dramane Boko (center) found his calling in community service during his time in Ghana.
“I joined AmeriCorps because the whole Idea was to help people,” said Dramane. “When I was in Africa in the refugee camp, I was working with many kinds of organizations…I was going in to the community to speak to people about the cause and effect of HIV/AIDS and also the prevention of HIV/AIDS.”
“I was helping a lot of people and I started to love the job.”
Ultimately, Dramane wants to become a nurse or social worker because he enjoys the one-on-one interaction. In the meantime, he’s studying for his GED and serving at the Center in Job Training.
According to our 2015 holiday poverty survey, the top three reasons for our clients’ unemployment were a dearth of living-wage jobs, having recently been laid-off from work, and a lack of education. Dramane’s task is to help rectify the conditions that create unemployment.
His days consist of helping students and clients in food handling and janitorial services. Guiding their training and test preparation through personal and online tutorials, Dramane takes each student step-by-step through the process. When asked to identify the most gratifying thing about his service, Dramane was quick to reply.
“(It’s most gratifying) when a person gets a job and is able to pay rent,” he said. “One of my clients, I was thinking about her a lot. She had just come out of jail and to get a job was not easy for her. She took forklift training but couldn’t get a job because (the prospective job) was too far and she didn’t have a car. She came back to me to pass the food handler permit. The last time I saw her, she had her own car and she said she was very happy.”
Those moments punctuate Dramane’s service, but he finds community service to be a worthy pursuit on its own. As he sees it, it’s not just that he doles out jobs. His service is a service to himself because he, as much as anybody, is part of the Lincoln community.
“When I see people happy, I’m also happy. When you are serving the community, you are not serving just them, you’re serving yourself because you are a part of them. When the community is suffering, you can also feel it. When it is happy, you’re also happy.”
His positivity radiates to all those with whom he works. AmeriCorps Supervisor Toni Rupe has taken note.
“He does a really good job of keeping things light and energetic,” said Rupe. “Client wise, he has a really good rapport. There’s many times you’ll be sitting with him and his phone will constantly be ringing and it’s his clients who are coming to him with questions. They know that he will listen.”
As Dramane Boko serves at the Center, he keeps Lincoln in mind. It has been the place where his family calls home. When the possibility of moving to another state emerged, it was quickly tabled for another time. Lincoln is where he’d like to stay and serve.
“If I had to teach Lincoln one thing, it would be that they should commit to serving their community,” said Dramane. “It is one of the most rewarding things.”
Although our VISTAs set out to teach the children, the children ended up teaching them just as much.
Our Teen Day event took place on Saturday, August 6 and Monday, August 8. Girls from grades 6 to 12 had the opportunity to “shop” for an assortment of free items including clothing, shoes, health and hygiene supplies, and accessories.
Center for People in Need 