2005 Member Profiles

(some names have been changed)

 Monday - age 17, is  Clubhouse teen mentor was featured in an article in the local newspaper (“Refugees cherish chance at education”, Salt Lake Tribune 08/02/2004). He was one of the few refugees who enrolled for summer classes. Monday was 2 years old when he father was murdered in Sudan and when he was in fifth grade, he decided to leave his mother and siblings in Uganda to go to school in the US. After graduation, his dream is to earn a scholarship and attend medical school.

Through an EPA grant to the Utah Federation of Youth,  Clubhouse member Talon (age 17), studied the content of trains traveling through the Clubhouse neighborhood.  They identified six chemicals that could cause severe health and environment effects in the event of a derailment.  during his internship with UFY, Talon used the Clubhouse often to compile data they collected. Talon was also a Clubhouse mentor for the summer.

Talon‘s internship highlighted in a local article (Salt Lake West Journal, Youth group identifies hazardous substances on 900 South trains, October 2004). The report can be found online at www.ufyi.org.

Rikki, age 9 is quite shy and somewhat reserved had been coming to the clubhouse since 2003 with the after school program.  In February 2005, she asked o be the first HOV junior mentor. She and  Staff designed a name tag for her that she proudly wears at each of her visit.  She has reached out and volunteered to help other members with basic functions in Photoshop and other software.  Since she is a wizard in designing cards in Microsoft Publisher, she was a great help during the Valentine Card phase. She overcame her natural timidity and turned mentoring into a powerful self-confidence building ally.

Mayra, age 8 - Some regular Spanish speakers of the HOV program brought Mayra to the Clubhouse in January 2005. Her family had recently emigrated from Mexico and her English and computer skills were virtually non-existent.  Her friends were keen on showing her the possibilities of scanning a photo and decorate it in “Kidpix”. Mayra likes to draw and her interest naturally led her to scan her own drawings.  

She seemed to blossom after staff introduced her to Photoshop. She literally worked for hours to apply colors and filters on very detailed drawings. She is extremely focused and can navigate in daunting English menus better than many older English speaking members. She also started to teach her friends how to do the same.