QCC students are the hardest workers around whether it’s studying for a full course load, holding down multiple jobs, taking care of a family, or completing community service. Four of those hardworking students, Britney Acquah, Whitney Acquah, Gabrielle Gedeon, and Eva Kadriu, just wrapped up a meaningful summer as Woo-Labs Hanover Fellows.
All four students were chosen to participate in Woo-Labs, a program started by the Worcester Education Collaborative (WEC) in 2021. Woo-Labs is a partnership of Worcester area organizations that offers community-focused and equitable Project-Based Learning to K-12 students.
“These students became aware of the Woo-Labs opportunity by first participating in a learning experience funded by a grant program called MassTeach, where they shadowed STEM teachers at Burncoat High School,” explained QCC STEM Initiatives Administrator Adrienne Linnell.
The program was designed to help students experience the joys and challenges of working with youth as teachers and mentors, in the hopes that they would “catch the bug” and want to pursue these career pathways, according to Ms. Linnell.
“Our team is thrilled that these students were motivated to become Woo-Lab Hanover Fellows this summer. Their enthusiasm is infectious! We look forward to supporting them in achieving their goals,” she added.
The QCC student Fellows were placed at various community-based organizations such as African Community Education (ACE) and the YWCA, where they work with the staff of the organization to create and implement learning projects for groups of young students. Fellows are given training and professional development prior to and during the program.
“Hands-on learning is so engaging for students. Organizations are free to create projects that best support their program objectives and student interests. We help them align the projects with a research-backed framework which involves linking project plans to explicit academic standards and social-emotional skills,” WEC Assistant Director Emily Dodge said.
Like QCC, a focus of Woo-Labs is advancing social justice through providing education to traditionally underserved populations and focusing on bettering our community.
QCC nursing student Gabrielle Gedeon and Fellow at ACE, has a passion for social justice. Ms. Gedeon has switched majors a couple of times and said the Woo-Labs experience has helped her to narrow down her focus on mental and behavioral health for children.
“A big reason of why I want to go into a job helping children with mental health is I want to work with kids of color. I’m speaking from black communities, and it’s (mental health) not always taken seriously, especially among older adults. I know what that’s like and I want to help those kids. The program definitely helped me in that area,” she said.
Engineering student Eva Kadriu was a Fellow at YWCA Camp Wind-in-the-Pines. It was a place that she found gratifying.
“I’ve always liked volunteering and I like pushing others to do the same. It is rewarding. Teaching others, especially younger students, helped me explain how good community service is and how rewarding it is to fight for social justice. For example, we’re doing a Kindness Quilt. We talked about community service and started off simple with helping around the campsite or at home and then coming up with ideas for things to do to help the community,” Ms. Kadriu said.
Woo-Labs also fosters soft skills for the participating Fellows. Britney Acquah, who is in QCC’s general studies program, completed her fellowship at the Guild of St. Agnes, where she enjoyed seeing how a program runs from behind the scenes.
“I loved every part of it,” she said. “Talking to students can be nerve-wracking but classes at QCC helped prepare me to communicate effectively and be a good listener. I can also use the things I learned through Woo-Labs in my studies at QCC, like patience and empathy. Working with people’s differences and processing new ideas will help me in the future.”
Ms. Gedeon said she noticed that her QCC classes gave her a good foundation for working in a program such as Woo-Labs as well as gaining new skills from the program.
“Working with children of different cultures, faiths and educational background is something I’ll need in the career I want to go into. Critical Thinking and Psychology helped me with that. I used what I learned in class and visualized it while working with the kids,” she said.
The participating organizations also noticed the benefits of Woo-Labs.
“Woo-Labs and the Fellows have helped ACE to re-focus and revitalize its programming with a greater emphasis on Project Based Learning. This has given our students more voice and more choice in their learning. And the Fellows are getting a better understanding of the challenges that are faced by younger students as well as a renewed understanding of how joyful learning can be,” ACE Program Director JP Perkins commented.
“The Woo-Labs program has been terrific for our organization. The Fellows seem to be learning a lot about childcare in general and seeing what it takes to make such a large program flow,” said Director of School Age Programs Nicole Martin from Guild of St. Agnes. “When children learn to work as a team, ask important questions and find answers together, it promotes some sense of social justice. No matter the topic being discussed, when we hear about various opinions and concerns it forces us to see things from a different point of view. Helping our children to think out of the box and be more open-minded is always a goal of ours.”
Woo-Labs is looking for another round of Fellows for the 2022-2023 academic year. If you know a student that might be interested, contact Emily Dodge (edodge@wecollaborative.org) for more information.