Community Literacy

Program Overview

The Southeast Asian Coalition's (SEACMA) Community Literacy program provides free reading, writing, and English programs to immigrants and refugees. Adults, youth, and children are welcome to attend the Community Literacy programs. Children between 3-13 learn and practice reading with mentors, and adults learn important reading, speaking and writing skills in free ESL classes. Classes for adults focus on reading, speaking and writing English used to run errands, for jobs, taking public transportation and much more!

Cost Info

Student and Volunteer Success Stories

Seh Reh* was a very shy 9 year old child who moved with his family to the US from a rural Thai refugee camp. He was very shy for the first couple months in the US and did not want to leave his house. But after joining one of the children's community literacy programs, he became very confident and began to engage with many students. He continuously asks to return to the program.

Last year, Komo*, a 5 year old boy who attends the children's reading community literacy program, gained enough confidence to call the Southeast Asian Coalition to ask about a clinic his family could go to to receive a second COVID-19 vaccine.

Jenny Vu* participated in the The Community Literacy Program resume writing workshops for youth ages 16-18. From these workshops, she created a resume and cover letter and used them to apply to jobs and colleges.

Kusaw*, an adult student who attends one of the ESL Community Literacy programs for adults, learned how to read instructions listed on medicine bottles from the class. He stated that after the class he felt more comfortable taking over-the-counter medicine because he now knew how to read instructions on how often to take medication.

Tawsa Reh*, a refugee from Burma, was not literate in his native languages (Burmese and Karen) and did not know how to write many English letters when he first attended the Community Literacy program. When he first began to attend the classes he would take about 10 minutes to write 3 words and his handwriting was often illegible. However, he continued to come to classes and stated that although the ESL class was challenging, he had been learning from every class and could see his improvement. He has been attending the class for 5 months and his handwriting has drastically improved. He has also begun to write significantly faster, writing about 6-8 words in 10 minutes compared to only being able to write 3 words before.

*Names have been changed