ORLANDO, Fla. – What do you do when you’re an Orlando high schooler who wants to help educate refugees, but do not see a niche for that particular passion in your community?
If you’re 18-year-old Alexis Dorman, you start your own nonprofit.
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That’s what she did her sophomore year of high school when she founded Career Aid for Immigrants and Refugees in 2018.
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It’s an organization she started after meeting a family from the Democratic Republic of the Congo at a Christmas-themed refugee breakfast and being inspired to help immigrant and refugee students develop careers in their new home country.
“It completely changed my entire perspective on, like, you know, the needs of refugee to relocate to the United States,” CAFYIR CEO Dorman said. “And I really loved the opportunity I had to volunteer with, like, the refugee kids. So, I immediately looked for more opportunities to do something similar to that, and found that most organizations are either religiously based or provide, like, very basic aid to refugee families who have recently moved to the United States. And I saw a need for an education-based organization. And that’s kind of how like CAFYIR came to be.”
Dorman and her team of 25 volunteers teach children between second and fifth grades throughout Orlando elementary schools. The children mainly hail from places in Latin and South America and Asia.
“I (learn) more from the students than I think they (learn) from me. Just dealing with these kids who are so young and, like, so passionate about all these different things,” Dorman said. “It’s amazing, like, what you can take away from the experience as well. These kids have like amazing, huge ideas for what they want in their future. And it’s really important to foster that.”
Even though Dorman is now a freshman at Florida State University with a double major in international affairs and political science and a minor in Chinese, she still carves out time to continue these workshops, which focus on applying what students are learning in school to real life. She likes to see how those who stay in the program over the years grow.
Dorman said students have the opportunity to do things like set goals by creating vision boards and explore math and architectural structures through blocks and Legos.
But when COVID hit, the group had to amend how they approached their lessons.
“We increased our social media presence. I started a YouTube channel where students can like you know, learn about different things on there. And we actually developed a virtual program called CAFYIR on the Computer, where students were able to meet with us weekly over Microsoft Teams to work on, like, literacy and learn about different things that were very prevalent in like the height of COVID times,” Dorman said.
The pandemic also came at the same time the nonprofit was awarded grant money from the Power of Youth Challenge, a program aimed at addressing racial division and injustice.
“Youth leadership is critical in our work and the Power of Youth is one example of that — a program dedicated to providing resources and support for young people to lead in their communities,” said Grace Fisher, senior communications manager at America’s Promise Alliance, which runs the youth-driven grant program.
Dorman, who originally planned to fund a summer camp with the grant money, said the recent COVID resurgence changed things. Instead, her team is using the money to fund a spring break program for a socially distanced, outdoor-based spring break camp for 10 to 15 students.
And America’s Promise Alliance is fully behind her as she forges the path for youth like herself.
“Just like don’t let age discourage you, whether ... you’re younger than the average person who would make a change like this or older. There’s always an opportunity to kind of, like, start your initiative and there are plenty of resources out there that really aid people in like, you know, developing an organization or like, you know, speaking about what they’re passionate about. It’s just a matter of, like, looking,” Dorman said.
The CAFYIR spring break webinar will be held virtually on Saturday, March 19 from 8-10 a.m.
Those interested in signing up their student or child for the spring break webinar can do so by clicking here.