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Selfless Students Volunteer with Tutors for Opportunity

Selfless+Students+Volunteer+with+Tutors+for+Opportunity

By: Margot Mather ’17

There aren’t many students who can say doing math for an hour with another student can help purchase materials for children in Ghana, but for the Staples students volunteering for Tutors for Opportunity, this is a reality.

For just $40 an hour, tutors offer their services to help students. One hundred percent of proceeds go directly towards donations to impoverished and underdeveloped schools in need.

“While I’m helping students within the local community with their course work I can also improve the education of people in countries across the globe,” tutor Timothy Chiang ’17 said.

For tutors Ulyana Piterbarg ’17 and Timothy Chiang ’17, Tutors for Opportunity presented the perfect place to bring their passion for learning, desire to help others, and curiosity in other nations into action.

“I think it’s really cool how this unifying cause of education kind of brings us together,” Chiang said.

The non profit global organization has set up its new base of tutors at Staples, although it is not affiliated with the school. Tutors for opportunity originated out of a Columbia University summer program in 2015, where five founders discovered it.

One of the organization’s’ founders, Daryl Choi ’16, invited Chiang to run the Connecticut branch when he graduated to go on to attend Cornell University. There, Choi plans to continue seeking out a tutor base to continue the scope of the organization.

Chois’ inspiration to develop the organization stems from his belief that one’s socioeconomic status or location of residence should not be a factor in deciding whether one receives an education or not. Another factor for Choi was to be a positive force in bridging the farthest education gap in the United States, here in Connecticut.

As a global organization, Tutors for Opportunity has many beneficiaries, spanning from East Timor, Nicaragua, Uganda and more.

“We actually have a tutor base in Ghana, where they are able to directly oversee how the projects there are going,” Chiang said.

One of the organization’s’ larger projects is stationed at the Wireless Public School in Accra, Ghana, where funds from their services aided in the purchase of books and other materials for children in attendance.

Funds from Tutors for Opportunity have also contributed to the Misara Islamic School in Uganda.

“Our funds were able to help them purchase a water filtration system which provided clean drinking water to students and the school,” Chiang said.

The tutors are inspired to continue their work through its impact.

“I mean honestly knowing that we have the ability to have this sort of impact on people who are so far displaced from us in completely different countries and completely different cultures is just kind of incredible. That’s one of the gifts that globalization has given us,” Piterbarg said.

For now, the organization is focusing on expanding it’s new Connecticut branch, specifically here at Staples.

“At the moment we are really working on spreading the word, gathering clients, starting up operations.” Ulyana said.

Piterbarg encourages students who are interested and with a qualified academic background to get involved.

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