While settling in a new country, the struggles of children are often ignored. Many immigrant children struggle to fit into the new community, redefining their roles within the family and finding the new friends from their environment.
In addition to the emotional turmoil of youth, the challenges faced due to immigration are worrisome.The differences in the cultural backgrounds and their lack of fluency in English puts them in awkward and complicated situations. When parents to notice their children’s quick assimilation, they are frown at what they perceive as a rejection of the family’s own ethnicity and culture. While they children struggle to balance two different worlds and move fluidly between them, they crave to connect and be accepted which are important components of an adolescent’s development. Many researches have highlighted the fact that children who do not connect in some meaningful way with their peers, family, or school are at an increased risk of suicidal tendencies, substance abuse, school failure and drop-out, health problems, and criminal activities.
Our activities include moral classes for children during Sundays, quarterly talent shows with weekly practice sessions on Saturdays, Leadership and public speaking sessions on every Sunday afternoons. We have also incorporated MalayalamLanguage Classes which allows children to stay connected to their roots in spite of living on foreign lands.
