These students make Columbus a warmer place

Rahma Anjum is a senior from the Toledo area double majoring in Arabic and history, and so when Ramadan came to a close last April, she was away from her family. Graciously, the family of two new American teens she’d been mentoring invited her to break her fast with them in Columbus.

“It meant so much to me,” Anjum says. “They made the most amazing Afghan food that I still tell everyone about now. And they gave me forks and spoons, even though everyone else was eating with their hands, just to be considerate of my culture.”

She mentors the girls, who moved here from Afghanistan, through CRIS Community Connectors, an arm of a local nonprofit that provides personal help for young immigrants, and is a member of Community Connectors at Ohio State, a student club that recruits mentors and fundraises for CRIS.

At first, Anjum worried she had nothing to give the girls: She couldn’t speak their language and didn’t know their values, and as a volunteer, she wasn’t sure how much influence she would have. But as time went on, their relationship blossomed.

Each time Anjum visited their home, she was met with more openness. As she treated the girls more as friends than her students, the three moved past the bounds of a transactional relationship and forged a friendship that she’s confident will last beyond her time at Ohio State.

“These girls’ lives were full of authority figures, teachers and leaders — what they needed was a mentor,” she says.

Anjum, who meets with the girls every week, works on the outreach committee of Community Connectors at Ohio State. Mentoring is a focus for the student organization, but the group also intentionally makes space for students who want to help the new American population (a term including immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees) even if they can’t act as mentors themselves.

In fact, the 20-member club is conducting its biggest fundraising push of the year, March Kindness. [It’s on gofundme.com, headlined “March Kindness Campaign” and organized by Avani Pham.] The proceeds will pay for groceries, rent, school supplies, warm clothing and more for the mentees of CRIS Community Connectors. 

“One hundred percent of the money we raise goes to the families we serve,” Anjum says.

The financial support and mentoring go hand-in-hand, she says. “Without the personal relationships we build with our mentees, we wouldn’t know where services are needed. They wouldn’t be contacting CRIS with their needs and attending events. They need a lot of mentor support to know they can take advantage of the resources.”

A majority of the club’s members have mentees, who can range from 5 to 24 years old, through CRIS Community Connectors. “We’re paired one-on-one with them to work through whatever goals they have,” says club Co-President Surekha Garapati, a sophomore in health and rehabilitation sciences who mentors the same family Anjum does. “This could be anything from learning English to just showing them around Columbus.”

Club Co-President Avani Pham was excited to reunite with her mentee after spending winter break in her hometown of Solon, Ohio. Her arrival came as a surprise. “I knock and hear, ‘Who is it?’ and someone cautiously opens the door,” recalls Pham, a sophomore in molecular genetics. Her mentee laughed and gave her the longest hug, saying, “I’ve missed you so much and I’ve been so bored without you.”

For a lot of new American children, if you aren’t at school, you’re inside the home, Pham explains. So the mentors play a vital role in providing positive interactions and relationships for the kids — even just being a new face inside their home is influential.

Connections are also built with the parents. “I’ve become a supporting figure for their family,” says Pham, who has helped the father with online bills and apartment searches and the mother with her English.

Anjum sees another benefit, too.

“CCOSU gives college students an opportunity to learn from new Americans, expanding their own worlds as they help others,” she says. “I think this reciprocal mindset is significantly better than the harmful savior mentality.”