Wednesday Night Tutoring is a program that provides academic assistance to refugee children, mainly from East Timor, Ethiopia, Iran and Vietnam. It runs during the school term on each Wednesday night between 7:30pm and 9:00pm at the Richmond housing commissions flats. Although we do provide academic help, our core aim is to help the students grow as people and aid them in integrating into the Australian way of life.

History

We began in April 2000, with just seven tutors: James Lee, Patrick Gracey, Riordan Williams, Gabrielle Stewart, Bernadette Fitzgerald, Fiona Killackey and Danielle Brunton(Wiggs); and just one family, the Hi Family. This first night was organized by James Lee after he participated in tutoring migrant and refugee children at Friday Night School as part of community service with his secondary school, Xavier College.

Friday Night School is a program which Xavier College is involved in, in conjunction with the Society of St Vincent de Paul and still runs today at St John's Primary School in Richmond, every Friday afternoon. During his time at Friday Night School he made close ties with St Vincent de Paul (in particular Margaret Gurry, the co-ordinator of Friday Night School) and the many children that attend. It was decided that a new, informal tutoring service would be started to allow university students to offer their assistance, because the Friday afternoon time is quite inconvenient for many of these students who are otherwise quite willing to offer their help.

For the first few months, James and the six other tutors continued to return on a weekly basis to tutor the Hi Family in their flat. These sessions were very informal and basically involved reading with the children and helping them with their homework. James paired the tutors and students in much the same way he still does, by matching the child's needs and the tutors strengths as closely as possible, and also matching personalities as best he can.

Soon after these first few months, more tutors started joining the program, at first university friends of those already involved, and as numbers grew it became clear that more children were needed. Through the advice of Margaret Gurry of St Vincent de Paul, new families in the area gradually joined the program. The children were recommended by Margaret if she believed they had shown significant effort in their studies, and the main criteria is that they have to attend Friday Night School. As the program grows, we continue to add new families to the program in a similar manner, and are presently helping 12 families each week.

When James moving to Sydney for work, the program has continued with new co-ordinators and a committee growing and changing to better suit the needs of the students!

Co-ordinators:
Julia Lee	Andrew Romanin
Committee:
Dan Brenan	Mary Etty-Leal
Nikki Flook	Tom Holbeach
Alice Muhlebach