SAIL Program Newsletter

The 'let us know' list
1. If any of your contact details have changed, please let us know.
2. If you are planning to have contact with your student outside of SAIL hours you must let us know first and then complete the contact request form.
3. If you intend to bring a friend to SAIL please direct them to the website first and direct them to apply online or just let us know beforehand.
4. Let us know if you are going to miss a Saturday by email, phone or the "Can't Come Sheet".
5. Please check your email account each week- if possible, Friday is best!
6. Please let us know before you speak publicly or publish an article about SAIL.

Important Diary Dates (Please note that SAIL does not take school holidays or long weekends off!)
1. Tutor Talk (in service) sessions are at 12:30pm on Saturdays 4th October, 8th November, 13th December.
2. Please bring any second hand clothes for recent arrivals in the Sudanese community on the Saturday before Tutor Talk weeks. Second hand toys are always very welcome in SAIL Junior.
3. There is no SAIL Xtend on the listed dates ie no Arabic or short courses.

Cars and lifts
1. Flinders Street- there are three cars that collect tutors from Flinders Street station every week. Cars leave at 10:05am from (and returns to) the post box on Flinders Street. Feel free to catch the lift!
2. Clifton Hill, Brunswick, Parkville, Collingwood, St Kilda, Richmond and Ringwood also have tutor collection points. Contact the co-ordinators for more information on 9819 5223.
3. Car drivers please note that, unless you are bringing non-human cargo to SAIL, we ask that you park your car in the Mephan Street car park located on the far side of the school (at the top of May Street) or, if you are early, at the front of the church on Ballarat Road.

Ongoing offers
1. Arabic classes- free to all SAIL volunteers from 12:30 – 1:15pm.
2. Photocopying- for any SAIL related photocopying, simply mark the pages from the books you want copied and give the book to Matthew or Anna Grace on Saturday- it will be ready for you the following week!
3. If you would like to post an ad or some other information relating to SAIL or another not-for-profit venture in which you are involved, please email the text and it will be included in the next newsletter.
4. The Tutor Resources section of the website is available at all times to provide tutors with ideas, games, work-sheets and support. We strongly suggest that if you are experiencing difficulties of any kind when working with your student, you post a request for advice on the SAIL Panel of Experts Bulletin Board (accessible from the Tutor Resources section).

Please read this entire document in the following week it gives updates on SAIL past, present and future!

Bumper edition of good news!
Feeling down? Read on. Never before have we had a newsletter so jam-packed (or should it be Vegemite-packed) full of good news! We are genuinely excited about all the announcements. We hope you are too. Read on, read on….

The Launch of the SAIL Star!!!
It is with a great deal of enthusiasm that we would like to introduce all SAILors to the SAIL student version of this newsletter; the SAIL Star! The SAIL Star is the brain-child of tutor, Catherine who will be the first editor-in-chief of the SAIL Star newspaper.

The SAIL Star will be an irregular SAIL broadsheet featuring the best of the writing and art of the SAIL student body. We hope all tutors will embrace the SAIL Star as an objective to work towards with their students.

What gets published?
If you, the tutors, say to the editors it should be published it will be (as soon as there is a space). We are especially keen for students to write about their stories about leaving Sudan and their reflections on life in Australia. But stories about cats chasing dogs around houses will also be gladly accepted.

How do I submit my student’s work?
Submission of written pieces must be by email. Please type out the work completed by your student (length is not an issue ie five words is enough, especially if they are the first five the student has written) and email it to the SAIL Star at SAILStar@NewpaperEmail.com . Art work and drawings can be submitted to the SAIL Star submission box which is housed in the library.

What’s the point?
The SAIL Star is designed to celebrate, publicly, the progress and hard work of the student SAILors. It will also be perfect material for one student to read the work of others and hopefully tell the author how good their writing was after.

When will it come out?
As soon as we get enough material for edition one! Keep you eyes peeled on Saturdays. Coming soon to a SAIL Program near you!

Want to help-out producing the SAIL Star?
You would be very welcome. Just contact the editors at SAILStar@NewpaperEmail.com.

CV writing service
As if we weren’t thrilled enough with all the other good news and innovations we are even more thrilled with the launch of the SAIL CV Writing Service. Employment is an ongoing issue for all new and emerging communities and the Sudanese community is no exception. In an effort to support Sudanese SAILors even more while at SAIL we are now able to offer (free, of course!) one-on-one CV writing with a CV-specialist SAILor. Lorraine, one of our invaluable team of librarians, has generously offered to type and advice on the lay-out and format of SAILors CVs on the computer in the library. The SAIL CV Service will run during SAIL time and at this stage, will be limited to SAIL Senior students. To book your student in for the CV Service please fill in their details on the library booking sheet.

The CV Service will require the SAILor to bring all relevant paper work including, where they are held, birth certificates, visa papers and evidence of previous work experience. Each SAILor who is booked in for the CV Service will be allocated an indefinite period in which to create their CV and a cover letter with Lorraine. At the end of the process, SAIL will provide as many copies as are required (free of charge of course). We will also keep the CV on file for the purpose of updating and reprinting in the future. We would encourage all SAILors Senior to offer this to their students and, where requested, book the student in for a double session (at least) with Lorraine.

Third Co-ordinator Announcement
We are thrilled to announce that our tireless library queen Bridgid will be a new Saturday Co-ordinator at SAIL. We have absolute confidence that Bridg will be more than able to fill Rob’s enormous shoes! We hope you will join us in congratulating and thanking her for the extra time she will be donating to the SAIL community. In conjunction with her hesitant move out of the library (only a little way), we are also glad to announce that Bridie will be taking over some of the chief librarian duties when Bridg is filling her other role.

We are also “in negoatiation” with two other SAILors who have expressed interest. We hope to have more good news on this front in the next newsletter

Very happy little vegemites
It is with great pleasure that we announce that we are SAILing off on camp again this summer. Last time Paul Newman, the actor, footed the bill. This time the great Australian icon, Vegemite (through the Happy Little Vegemite Foundation) are paying all expenses. We would like to thank Vegemite for their support, thank Lindy without whose bizarre web-searching behavior we would never have known to apply and Noah whose role it is to organize the camp. We are now calling for expressions of interest from SAIL volunteers who are interested in and available to attend the free camp in early January 2004. We will allocate the very limited places on the basis of length of volunteer service to SAIL.

Week Five Guest Speakers
As if the previous excitement isn’t exhausting enough, we also have a superlative line-up of speakers for the next week 5 on Saturday October 4, 2003.

SAILors Primary and Secondary are encouraged to join us for a presentation by Michael Carr-Greg. Michael will be speaking about an issue that is pertinent to every SAILor at school; bullying. It has come to our attention on numerous occasions that, for fairly obvious reasons, our kids stand out at school and, relatively frequently, get picked on for it. Given the vital mentoring role that each and every SAIL tutor plays in the life of the Sudanese SAILor they work with, we feel it is important that resilience skills are being practiced and discussed during SAIL sessions. Michael will be addressing these issues and responding to questions that SAILors may have. Many of you will know of Michael who maintains a high profile for his tireless work. For those who don’t know of him, just to give you an impression, we had to book him for this presentation in April! We sincerely hope all SAILors of primary and secondary school aged SAILors will join us from 12:30pm in the church for this presentation and discussion.

SAILors Junior are invited to the regular SAIL Junior meeting. For our part, we don’t expect this to last very long because we have been overjoyed by the turn-around in the SAIL Junior room over the past 6 months due to the continued hard work of the Junior Team. This will provide a good opportunity to moot ideas and offer advice to us about how SAIL Junior can be better supported! The session will take place in the foyer.

SAIL Senior – Kathy Earp returns by popular request. An experience tutor-trainer from the Adult Multicultural English Service (AMES), she will be presenting more material on working with low-level students in accordance with tutor’s requests. Many people have told us how useful they found her session last time. New tutors especially are encouraged to attend. From 12.40 for 45-60 mins in the Chapel (SAIL Junior Room). Also very relevant to Senior tutors is this weeks’ Sudanese Community Talk, read on…

Community Talk
Jessica Letch from the International Red Cross Tracing Service is coming to SAIL to talk about how refugees can trace relatives with whom they have lost contact. This session could be potentially life-changing for many Sudanese SAILors who have been separated from close family members but don’t understand the process involved in tracking them down. It is, of course, free and translated. Please do everything and anything you can to convey the message of the session to your students, including using other students as translators as necessary!! This session will happen from 12.30pm in the Hall.

Double Cycle Ahead
We only have two SAIL Xtend cycles left before the end of the year. Now that all the kids have had a taste of all the activities, we’re going to combine the last 2 Xtend cycles together. We are going to ask SAILors to choose their favorite Xtend activity. They will then get to do it for 8 weeks instead of 4. This gives the kids and the tutors more time to get stuck into Xtend. How does this involve you? Well, this coming Saturday we’ll be passing around a worksheet asking the kids to pick their favourite Xtend activity. We hope that you can help them to fill it out so that everyone ends up with an activity that they genuinely want to do.

Random Lifts
Lately, we’ve noticed that some of the students ask random tutors to give them random lifts to, well, random places! While some tutors probably don’t mind whizzing people to the library or the shops on their way home, there have been a few occasions where people have been asked by students to drive them miles away. On one recent occasion, a SAILor asked a tutor to drive her ‘home’ and it was only after about an hour of driving around the far west that the student realised she really didn’t know where exactly she lived, and they were forced to return to the church! So, this is a note to all drivers–please don’t feel obliged to give lifts to anyone who asks, especially if you are already doing pick-ups and drop-offs that have been assigned to you by SAIL.

There are 2 buses at SAIL for a reason – to ensure that everyone, even those who live miles away, gets home. If someone asks you to take them some place, and you’re not sure where it is, or whether you should, please just come and check with us.

Home-help positions still available
Childcare during the week
We currently have a mum who desperately wants to go to extra English classes at Centrelink on Wednesday and Thursday mornings between 10am-12pm but is unable to afford childcare and therefore can’t attend. She has two little girls aged 3 and 5 who are very easy to look after. Are you or know someone you know, able to provide some voluntary childcare at her home in Braybrook on these days? This childcare would also be included as part of the SAIL Home Help Program and thus the volunteer will have SAIL resources at their disposal and will be eligible to attend the free SAIL Home Help training.

Homework Help During the Week
Know someone keen to SAIL who can’t make a Saturday? Find that a weekly SAIL fix simply ain’t enough for you? A family recently approached us about getting two volunteers to visit them during the week in order to give the children some extra homework support in after school time. There are five kids who need the help aged between prep and grade 6. Times, days and numbers of volunteers are negotiable. Before anything is agreed on, any potential volunteers would attend a meeting with us and the family in question to work out some firm arrangements that suit everyone. This would also be classified as Home Help.

English for Akon
We are still looking for people tutor Akon in English at home. Akon gives so tirelessly to us and the wider Sudanese community that he simply doesn’t have time to attend classes at AMES. We’d love to hear from anyone, including people you know who are not currently SAILors, who might be able o tutor him at home. As above, time and day flexible.

Out of hours contact reminder
Just a reminder to all that out-of-hours contact with SAIL students under the age of 18 can only proceed after a consent form has been completed. The forms are on the website at http://home.vicnet.net.au/~sail/tutor.htm or from us any Saturday.

Home Help and the library
For the first time we are encouraging some SAILors to borrow from the library. At this stage, borrowing from the library is limited to those SAIL volunteers who are involved in the Home Help program. Borrowing must be done through Bridgid, library queen who will record the transaction. The books must be returned within 3 weeks. The library will be open for borrowing for this purpose from 10am until 5pm on Saturdays only.

Thanks to all helpers who attended the training at the Ecumenical Migration Centre. We hope you found the discussion useful. From our point of view it was very worthwhile to hera everyone’s feedback and to brainstorm ideas as to how we can improve the service we are offering and the experience you are having! Thanks for your great ideas. We’ll keep you updated as to future training and the outcome of the Induction Pack and other suggestions.

Progress in Sudan
The Sudanese press has come alive with the talk of peace once again. While the prospects of peace seem unlikely in the short term, great hopes are developing that the current negotiations may lead to renewed efforts towards this ultimate goal. This seems to be a good sign of a changing landscape. Even Kofi Annan has made mention of his hopes. For more details see http://allafrica.com/stories/200309110444.html . As always, we strongly support any moves in Sudan towards a peaceful resolution to the war of 20 years. Stay tuned (via the web) for progress in this direction!

New Student Reflections
The script from the ‘Flow’ performance done by the SAIL teenagers last month is now up on the Web. Check it out at http://home.vicnet.net.au/~sail/reflectionsS.htm .



SAIL Press bonanza
In the last couple of weeks and to coincide with the 2nd Birthday of SAIL, there have been two press appearances by SAIL. One in the local press, the Footscray Mail and another in mX. Both Press Clippings are available in full on the website at http://home.vicnet.net.au/~sail/pressclippings.htm . The mX photo came from the excursion to the Ballet where 12 of SAILors were fortunate enough not only to see the performance of the Australian Ballet (organised in part by SAILor, Lilla), but then go backstage meet the cast and have our photos taken with them! It was a bit hard to decipher whether the kids were more enchanted by the ballerinas in costume or the ballerinas were more enchanted by our kids! Either way, the excursion was a great success!

Dambai Goes Off
Those of you who saw Akon Deng Shok and his Dambai Dance Group perform at the SAIL Birthday Party know how amazing they are. So here’s your chance to see them perform in a proper venue with plenty of space and without falling over pews and small children! Dambai are performing on 17th October at the Braybrook Community Centre at 7.30pm. This will be a show to remember and the prices are very reasonable. See blue notice in the church foyer for more information.

Dental Drama
We currently have a couple of SAILors from the drama group working on a play written by some Dental Hygiene students from Melbourne University. It is supposed to convey a basic dental hygiene message in a fun way. They are working on it in SAIL Xtend time. In a few weeks this will be performed for all the SAIL Xtend groups. Prepare yourselves for SAILors dressed as tubes of toothpaste!



Kids and TV seminar
Those of you studying education, or media, or those who are just interested may like to know about this seminar: Children and Television presented by Dr Patricia Edgar (former head of kids tv at the ABC), Friday October 10 from 7.30pm at the Academic Centre, University College, College Crescent, Parkville. RSVP (for catering purposes) to Miranda Lukey 9347 3533 or email m.lukey@unicol.unimelb.edu.au

THANK YOUSE!
Too often we forget to thank the marvelous team of Culinary SAILors who prepare all 300+ lunches for the SAIL crew each and every Saturday. The kitchen team spend a fraught few hours on Saturday preparing the food for the 12pm deadline but they also labour throughout the week buying and preparing the food for our Saturday feast. We would like to thank Ingrid, Diana and Mary without whom every other SAILor would be both tired and hungry every Saturday afternoon. We would also like to take this opportunity to welcome the new Culinary SAILors on-board!

Thanks also to Gina H from SAIL Junior, who has asked that all who attend her 21st Birthday donate money to SAIL in lieu of presents for her. This is a hugely generous gesture and we are quite bowled over by it. You rock, Gina.

Big thanks to Christine Martin for her tireless work in front of the photocopier each week. It is undoubtedly the most mundane of jobs and you do it with such good grace. We really appreciate it.
All car drivers should by now have received emails from Tanya Smith, who organises the car collection each week. Tanya was faced with a monumental task when she started doing this, as the records were a little shambolic and it’s a very hard thing to do by remote control when you don’t know ther area or the people involved. In fact, Tanya could have fallen off a vertical learning curve, but due to her brilliance and organization she hasn’t and the car collections are now running smoother than ever before. We are relieved to have the pick-ups in such good hands and we thanks Tanya for her amazing efficiecy and good communication.

Total Trivia
Did we miss National Email Week? For unknown reasons it seemed to have been the cool thing to do to send us an email during the period 8 until 12 September. We received (and responded to)… ready for it… 182 emails all sent directly to us! Thanks everyone for making us feel so… special?

The original name for Vegemite (who have just offered to pay for the first SAIL camp in 2004) was “Pawill”. The original manufacturer of (what is now called) Vegemite established the business to compete with “Marmite”, the brand with the monopoly at the time. The name didn’t take off because no-one saw the connection between the names. Do you? (If you say the two brand names a few times over you should get the little joke… although this is all absolutely true!)

Exhausted by our own enthusiasm for all the things going on around SAIL, we want to thank you once again for the energy you donate to SAIL and the Sudanese community.

Matthew and Anna Grace