Forging Opportunities for Refugees in America ("FORA")

Program Overview

Founded in 2018 in response to the international Rohingya crisis, we specialize in helping recently arrived refugee children who have previously been denied an education and are illiterate in their native languages to gain foundational education skills so that school becomes meaningful for them.

We are based in the West Ridge neighborhood of Chicago, a neighborhood with thousands of recently arrived immigrants, refugees and asylees from, inter alia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Bhutan, Syria, Afghanistan and Angola. Pre-pandemic, we served 30 formerly illiterate Rohingya, Afghani and Syrian children every day, providing each child with 520 hours per year of customized intensive instruction in reading and math with a 2-to-1 student-tutor ratio using professional teachers and paraprofessionals (and lowering the ratio even further with volunteers). When the pandemic hit, we took an additional 30 children, and we now serve 60 children with 2 hours a day of 1:1 online tutoring, for a total of 2,640 hours a month of tutoring. All tutors undergo legally mandated background checks and are monitored and mentored one hour every ten days.

Cost Info