NEWS

Kids to teach parents at Stone center event marking 10 years of teaching, mentoring

By LANITA WITHERS
and L.J. TOLER
UNC News Services

CHAPEL HILL -- Thursday night (April 24), about 75 sets of parents from several local schools will learn all about the famed underground railroad of U.S. history. They will learn about tribes that once populated Africa. They’ll read critiques of art exhibits, plays and classical music concerts.

The teachers will be their 91 kids – ages 5 through the teen years.

The occasion will be the tenth anniversary celebration of the Communiversity program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a public service project of the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History.

In Communiversity, UNC students volunteer to teach and mentor kids and teens from local schools, whose parents send them to the program for extra instruction and guidance. In a free public reception Thursday (April 24), the children will show their Moms and Dads what they learned this year in Communiversity. Skits, songs, displays of the children’s artwork and more will be part of the program, from 5-8 p.m. in Room 1505 of the Frank Porter Graham Student Union at UNC.

Anthony Walters, Communiversity director, said the program began in 1992-93 with about 25 children in a Saturday School study program. In 10 years, Communiversity has grown to 91 children in five component programs, with 91 UNC student volunteers, and waiting lists for both groups.

Communiversity will remain contained near that valuable one-on-one ratio, Walters said: "We want to keep it intimate. These children need to have a mentor they can look up to when they get here, and get nurturing that is necessary for emotional and intellectual growth."

Communiversity emphasizes the black experience but isn’t limited to black participants, Walters said: "Any student who wants to learn about this history and culture is more than welcome. We are always trying to diversify the program from counselors to students. The program also emphasizes character development, he said. The program’s motto comes from an unknown sage: "Excellence is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction, skillful execution and the vision to see obstacles as opportunities."

"UNC students volunteering in the program learn from their pupils," said sophomore Michelle Greene, 19, of Randleman, a program coordinator and tutor for Communiversity.

"The kids are great," she said. "They teach you so much about living life and seeing yourself from an unaffected point of view. They always appreciate what you’re doing for them. No matter how bad your day was before that, when you come out of Communiversity, you always have a smile on your face."

Schools with students in Communiversity this year included Carrboro and Frank Porter Graham elementary schools, McDougle Middle School and Chapel Hill and East Chapel Hill high schools. Students in Durham schools also are eligible, but fewer participate because of transportation difficulties, Walters said.

Walters gets the word out in area schools regularly, especially when the school year opens. Teachers and principals recommend the program; parents call. Tuition is a mere $25 per year.

For Communiversity’s four after-school components, the program contracts with a van service that brings children from the Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools to UNC. After their activities, parents pick them up.

Parents also must bring the children to and from Saturday School, which now is a computer skills class that meets every other Saturday morning. Saturday School is open to enrollees in any of the other four components:

• Homework assistance for students aged 8-13, providing academic assistance and mentorship relationships; 3-5 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.
  
  
• Literacy, building reading and comprehension skills and emphasizing the importance of reading, for ages 5-10; 3-5 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays.
  
  
• Teen Outreach, providing programming that prepares students with life skills for college and future careers. Students learn to write resumes and complete applications, prepare for the SAT, and learn etiquette and financial skills; 4-6 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays.
  
  
• In Our Voice, for high school students, a 15-week program of cultural education, 4-6 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays. Participants saw art exhibits, plays, concerts and other cultural events, then wrote about them. The Stone Center acquired a $2,500 grant from UNC’s Carolina Center for Public Service to print and publish the participants’ work. Copies of the resulting booklet, "In Our Voice," will be available at the reception Thursday.

Greene recalls one star of last year’s reception, a boy of 5. Early in the year, tutors figured out that he couldn’t read.

"He was so shy," she said. "He wouldn’t talk to anybody. But then he buddied up with one of our counselors, and it brought out the life in him."

By year’s end, he could read Communiversity’s "excellence" motto – which he did, aloud, before the entire gathering.

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(Withers is a senior in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication from Reidsville.)

Contact: Anthony Walters, 919-962-7264, waltersa@email.unc.edu
News Services contact: L.J. Toler, 919-962-8589, laura_toler@unc.edu