Williams College Winter Study Program in Portland, Maine

Students at Williams College, in Williamstown Massachusetts, are required each year to participate in the one month Winter Study Program each January.  Each student’s Winter Study Program is designed by the student. For example one program could be an independent project with a faculty sponsor in an area of interest such as poetry, music, or dance.   Another could be delving deeper into a topic of interest that was glossed over in a history or literature class.  Another could be interning someplace outside of the Williams College campus, such as being an intern in a government office or medical clinic.

For the past six (6) years, Professor Jeffrey Thaler of the University of Maine has brought a small group of Williams students to Portland, Maine, which is a refugee resettlement city.  In Portland, each student lives with a host family and works with various service providers offering support to the families who come from over 50 countries worldwide.  Most of the Williams students work alongside teachers in the public schools as teacher’s aides in the English Language Learners classes and mainstream classes where you can imagine the language challenges for the children are great and even overwhelming!  Professor Thaler says, “One of the program goals for the Williams students is to learn from people very different from themselves who are working hard to adjust to a completely new culture, climate, and set of challenges. At the same time, meeting the Williams students enables these families to learn from college students who have navigated their way to a very good 4-year college, and can in turn help the children and family learn more about the processes and issues involved in higher education.”  

Here is a Somali boy named Libaan, who is in second grade and was thrilled to receive a colorful teddy bear!

Here are four (4) children – Amazia, Blessed, Eben, and Mary – from Rwanda and the Congo