ENGLISH @ WORK

ENGLISH @ WORK is an Austin, Texas-based nonprofit whose mission is to increase immigrants’ opportunities for advancement by providing essential English language instruction at the workplace. Since our 2005 founding, we have served over 800 workers at over 30 businesses in the service, healthcare, and construction industries in Central Texas. Our students are hotel and hospital housekeepers, food service workers, and grocery store prep cooks. They hail from 30 different countries and speak over 20 languages, but they all have one common goal - to speak English well enough to do a good job and support their families. For more information, please visit our website.

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Our St. David's South Medical Center students in speed interviews yesterday (8/9/12). Such a happy bunch!

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Photo Wednesday!

Meet Cuban students, Edisledys and Indira, from our Caritas of Austin English class.

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Come by Güero's Taco Bar next Wednesday, July 25th! Five percent of ALL SALES that day will be donated to E@W. Tell your friends! http://eepurl.com/nLn2H

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In recognition of World Refugee Day, we think of the millions and millions that are displaced each year. Read more at the link above.

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Celebrate World Refugee Day in Austin this Saturday, June 23rd at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum! Festivities are FREE and will go through 11:30am - 3pm. 

Little tidbit: Our former students, Kim and Huang, are featured on the poster under the "And more..." section. So proud!

Hope to see some of you there!

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Yesterday we bid farewell to E@W teacher, Casey Kasper. Casey was accepted to the JET Program and will be teaching English in Japan starting in July. Thank you for everything Casey! The E@W team and all the students will miss you!

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Are you bilingual (Eng/Span), a community organizer, and have experience working in immigrant populations? Apply for our AmeriCorps VISTA position! Volunteer will be spearheading a student mentoring program. Great opportunity to make a difference in the Austin immigrant ESL community. 

Application deadline is May 25th. For more information, contact our Program Manager, Bekah Schmidt, at [email protected]. 

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Week 2 of our May birthday campaign and we're celebrating throughout the month by bringing you the stories of our students. This week we bring you Kul, Keshav, and Ramesh. Tune in as they tell us about their journeys from a refugee camp in Nepal to the Seton UMC Brackenridge housekeeping department in Austin, TX.

If you feel compelled, we invite you to send the video to your friends and help us reach our $7,000 May fundraising goal. Donate today @ http://bit.ly/eawbirthday!

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Our Maudie's students graduated from the program last week!

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Greetings, ENGLISH @ WORK family!  Today is May 1st. May is a big month for us here at E@W. Why, you ask? First of all, it marks the beginning of great swimming weather in Austin. (Who doesn't love that?) Secondly, it’s the month that many countries of the world celebrate International Workers' Day.  But most importantly for E@W, May is the month that we celebrate our birthday. And this year we are turning 7 years old! In the last 7 years, we have met over 700 immigrants and refugees who needed work-based English skills in order for their families to survive and thrive in the United States. Many of these individuals have incredible, inspiring stories. We’ll be sharing some of their stories with you this month through short videos. Getting to know our students and telling their stories is one way you can celebrate E@W’s birthday with us. Another way to celebrate with us is to make a donation. In honor of our 7th year, we have set out to raise $7,000 in May. All of these funds will go back into E@W’s workplace English program. And just so you know, $7,000 is about what it costs us to run our 6-month program for 20 participants at one partner business. What's even better is that this year the Charles and Betti Saunders Foundation is matching all donations we receive during our birthday month. So if you think about it, it's like we're already half-way to meeting our $7,000 goal. We hope you will join in! Thanks, and happy May! - Maile

Executive Director

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Say hi! Ran into former Habitat Suites student, Javier, over the weekend!

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Juan, Omar, and Nahú

We finished up classes this week at Maudie's TEX-MEX. It was a sad day for us, but we can't wait to see the guys and their families so we can all celebrate on graduation day!

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Happy time in the E@W office! Meet Jocelyn Connell, an E@W teacher and now ALSO our new Business Development Associate!

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Too adorable to not share. This weekend we celebrated little Katy's 1st birthday with Nahú (a student in our Maudie's TEX-MEX class) and his wife, Maricel. Thank you for inviting us, Nahú and Maricel! ¡Felicidades, Katy! ¡Qué cumples muchos años más!

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‎"We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about progress and prosperity for our community. Our ambitions must be broad enough to include the aspirations and needs of others, for their sakes and for our own." Cesar Chavez

join us as we celebrate Cesar’s legacy tomorrow (Saturday) with others at the Si Se Puede! March starting at 10am at the Terrazas Branch Library and ending at 1pm at Austin City Hall. Afterwards, we’ll be at his birthday celebration at Rabbit’s Lounge on east 6th starting at 2pm. There will be free food and music!

Nos vemos? Hope so!

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This week we began a new class at The Personnel Store. TPS staffs businesses in the hospitality, clerical, labor, and property management industries. With so many industries it looks like we will have students working a wide variety of jobs. We can't wait to share their stories with you!

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Did you know over 70% of our students are female?

Today we think of them and all the hard work they have put in to not only move to the United States, but then to begin a journey of learning English knowing that it will improve their abilities to support themselves and their families. And because they know no limit, neither do we. Today is to them - Happy International Women's Day!