Amigos de UCLA, established in 1962, is the longest running tutorial project in the Community Service Commission. Our project originally focused on improving living conditions in Tijuana, Mexico, but we have since seen a need for our services in the immediate Los Angeles community. As a result, Amigos now focuses its efforts on achieving educational enrichment and equity in Arlington Heights, an under-resourced community in mid-city LA. Through weekly one-on-one tutoring at our middle school sites, our little and big amigos build a strong reciprocal relationship in which both tutor and tutee benefit from the experience. Amigos de UCLA aims to provide each little amigo with unwavering support in both their academic and extracurricular lives by promoting higher education through a social justice framework.
Our Services
PIO PICO MIDDLE SCHOOL The first day of site you are assigned a tutee that you will work with for the entire quarter. In the first half of site we provide one-on-one tutoring, which involves homework help, the use of supplementary materials, and checking out a book from our library to read at site. After, we provide a healthy snack for our students to eat. Then, the Middle School Activities Directors provide a weekly lesson that deals with an established theme for the quarter; the lessons are often time supplemented with an activity/worksheet for our students to work on to reinforce what they have learned.
For Volunteers
Life outside of Westwood: Every quarter we hold at least one social to allow volunteers from all days of site to hang out and get to know each other a bit more. Places that we have gone to include Millions of Milkshakes, The Big Chill, Blockheads Shavery, Hole-in-the wall burgers, and Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles.
Life within Westwood: Have no experience tutoring? Need tips? Don't worry, we have quarterly workshops entitled "How to Tutor" for all volunteers. Along with serving the purpose of making the tutoring process easier for our volunteers, it also serves as a way for volunteers and directors that go on different days to meet and get to know each other. Additionally, we hold yearly documentary showings on The Hill. In the past we have screened: Waiting for Superman, American Teacher, and TEACHED!