New York Times (May 22, 2012)
New York Times
May 22, 2012, 8:31 am
A Charity for Children of New York’s South Asian Working Class
By SHIVANI VORA
Courtesy of South Asian Youth Action
Attendees talking with volunteers at South Asian Youth Action’s annual
career fair held on April 21, 2012 at the Elmhurst center, New York.
NEW YORK–Like a number of charities in the United States, South Asian
Youth Action (SAYA) seeks to help needy South Asian children, but not
in some distant land like India — these youths are in its backyard in
New York City.
According to the United States Census Bureau American Community Survey
from 2010, more than 1 out of 20 youths (between the ages of five and
19) in New York City are South Asian, and a quarter of this population
lives at or below the poverty level. In the New York borough of Queens,
where SAYA is based, one out of eight youths is South Asian.
These are the children of the people wealthier New Yorkers cross paths
with multiple times a day: taxi drivers, the deli and newsstand
workers, the fruit and food cart vendors. Their children often attend
overcrowded public schools, and the parents work long hours and may be
unaware of the issues students face at school, like the pressure to
join gangs or try drugs.
Founded in 1996 by Sayu Bhojwani, a Queens resident who saw a lack of
resources for South Asian children in New York, SAYA offers more than a
dozen sources of support. On the academic side, students can get
tutoring and help with the college application process through the
Chalo College program, which includes campus visits and information on
financial aid and scholarships. For personal development, there is a
leadership program for girls, a basketball program for boys and
counseling for emotional issues.
The nonprofit organization has a presence in seven schools, which are
all in Queens except for one in Brooklyn, and a gurdwara, a Sikh
temple, but its main base is a community center in Elmhurst, a Queens
neighborhood, where kids can come after school or on weekends to play
basketball, get tutoring, do their homework, meet with counselors or
simply hang out.
The majority of SAYA youth are of Guyanese, Bangladeshi, Indian and
Pakistani descent, said Udai Tambar, SAYA’s executive director, and
each of the organization’s sites reflects the ethnic subgroup that is
largest in that neighborhood. SAYA offers ethnicity-specific
counseling, and it bills itself as the nation’s only secular youth
organization for South Asians.
“If you think of identity as a Venn diagram where the different circles
represent the different parts of their identity, SAYA creates a safe
space for youth to explore how these circles overlap,” Mr. Tambar said.
“By being a secular space, we allow youth to explore what their
religion and its overlap with other parts of their identity means for
them.”
So far, about 7,700 youths have participated in SAYA’s programs.
According to Mr. Tambar, 100 percent of those who have participated in
its Chalo College have gone on to enroll in a university, including top
schools like Barnard and New York University.
At SAYA’s annual career fair in late April at the Elmhurst center,
South Asian youths had the opportunity to learn about different
industries like business, education, communications, government and law
through conversations with professionals in those fields. The 75 young
people who turned out this year spoke to volunteers like Krishna
Veeraraghavan, a partner at the New York law firm Sullivan and
Cromwell; Jehangir Mehta, a chef who was the runner-up on “The Next
Iron Chef;” Raj Venkataramani, a Goldman Sachs managing director, and
Pappudu Sriram, a partner at Boston Consulting Group.
Ms. Sriram, who is a SAYA board member, also brings young South Asians
into the BCG offices in Manhattan as part of a power lunch series so
they can speak with interns and recent graduates about life at the
consulting firm. “There is a shocking unawareness about the needy South
Asian youth here, but it’s a mission I am moved by and want to help in
any way I can,” she said.
Saad Abbasi, 15, who lives in Queens and is of Pakistani descent, said
the career fair gave him a chance to learn about the basics involved in
different jobs. The sophomore at Townsend and Harris, a school for
gifted children, said he has been coming to the center for the past two
years to play basketball and do homework. “SAYA gives me a safe place
to come and do fun stuff and also my schoolwork,” he said.
The benefits for SAYA’s participants don’t stop after high school.
Khwaja Hassan, 28, said he started going to the center when he was in
high-school for SAT prep, English writing classes and counseling. Mr.
Hassan said he grew up in a three-bedroom house in Elmhurst with his
parents, sister and up to 15 other relatives and roommates. His
parents, who emigrated from Bangladesh and never went to college, both
worked as cashiers, earning low hourly wages, and didn’t have the
knowledge to guide him through school.
“SAYA changed my perspective and made me ambitious about life ,” he
said. “If I didn’t have them to help me with my college applications
and talk to me about issues I went through as a teenager, I wouldn’t
have that desire to succeed.”
Mr. Hassan ended up earning a scholarship to Dickinson College in
Pennsylvania and now works at Bloomberg in Midtown Manhattan as an
account manager. He earns a six-figure salary, he said, and supports
his parents in addition to having his own home, where he lives with his
wife.
“When you get a taste of what is out there which is what I got with
SAYA, you get hungrier and hungrier, and right now, I am living in a
dream,” he said.
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