GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – A local non-profit organization is expanding its English-as-a-second-language program, after being the first organization in West Michigan to get a grant from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Kent County is one of the top 200 counties in the nation for immigrant and refugee resettlement. This grant means the Literacy Center of West Michigan will get to reach twice the amount of people to learn English before taking the citizenship test.
It’s estimated that 85,000 people in Kent County read English before a fourth grade level, and the Literacy Center of West Michigan is getting a boost to help immigrants learn English on their path to citizenship.
“We have waiting lists,” Executive Director Wendy Falb says. “The demand has grown.”
Last year, the center did classes twice a year and taught English to about 75 immigrants.
Now, $300,000 over the next two years from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services means about 200 adults will get instruction on the English language, the citizenship test and the N-400 application for naturalization.
“We want to get the word out now to people because the major barriers for the immigration process is English language literacy, English language proficiency, as well as filing the legal process [and] getting guidance around that,” Falb says.
The center teaches people from all over the world, from Central and South America as well as Africa and Asia. In 2020, there were more than 32,000 non-citizens in Kent County, a number that’s expected to grow with more resettlement since then, of Afghan refugees and others.
“I think the Afghani refugees are just part of just beginning to be part of this parolee process, but we certainly expect that,” Falb says.
“The [program] will be 11 weeks of class all year round,” Integrated Education and Training Coordinator and ESL Instructor Carrie Machkouri says.
She says the center meets each learner’s needs, identifying their proficiency in English with pre-testing. She says going into the citizenship test can be very intimidating.
“There are parts to the interview that I don’t know if I would even be able to answer many of the 100 questions on the test, as well as the writing and the reading and the speaking barriers that our learners have and that they would face in the interview,” Machkouri says. “So, our classes really focus on removing those linguistic barriers that that our learners face.”
The grant has also allowed the center to hire an additional ESL program coordinator to help with the expansion of their citizenship and community classes.
At the Literacy Center of West Michigan, one-on-one tutoring, community classes and business classes for employees are also available.
“I feel like we’re just getting started. The need is so high,” Falb says. “So I’m excited. I think this is just step one of many years to come of really, really ensuring that West Michigan is a place where newcomers not only come, but thrive.”
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