Just Like Brother And Sister

By Shams Tarek

Fifteen-year-old Jamaica resident Maheshwarie Gopaul, both of whose parents work on the weekends, didn’t used to do much on the two days a week she has free from school.

“I was usually home every weekend, sleeping or watching TV,” Gopaul said.

When she did go out, it was only in the neighborhood.  The wonders of the City—and even just the borough—were foreign to her.

All that changed last fall when she met Nina Sherman, a 28-year-old Manhattan resident who hangs out with her through Big Brothers Big Sisters of New York City (BBBSNYC), a non-profit agency founded in 1904 that has about 4,000 children age seven to 17, known as “Littles,” matched with mentors, known as “Bigs.”

“Bigs” and the kids they mentor spend about four hours together every two weeks. Last summer Gopaul and Sherman visited Central Park.

These days, Gopaul spends her weekends on outings with her Big Sister, having visited places like Chelsea Piers and Avery Fisher Hall in Manhattan, the Central Park Zoo, the Museum of Modern Art in Queens and Giants Stadium.  She had never been to any of those places before.

“It’s nice experiencing new things for the first time,” said Gopaul, who immigrated here from Guyana in 1999.  She added about the young-at-heart Sherman, “it was fun doing it with someone almost my age.”

For the BBBSNYC, which tries to match kids with mentors who are socially and personally compatible, Gopaul’s comments are a sign that the agency is doing something right.

Gopaul and Sherman met through BBSNYC’s New American Partnership, which the agency started in December 2001 to address the needs of young immigrants whose parents may not have the time or cultural familiarity kids need when adjusting to their new country.

The program is very similar to the agency’s traditional mentoring program, which it has been pursuing citywide since its formation, in which adult mentors are chosen after a rigorous screening and interview process to spend time with urban youth for two weekends a month for at least one year.

What the New American Partnership adds is a special concern for the kids’ needs as immigrants, which often makes urban living more difficult than for kids born here.

“There seems to be a huge communication gap between teenage kids and their parents when the parents weren’t born here,” said Tamanna Vaswani, coordinator of the Partnership, who noted that there is a high incidence of depression and other mental health issues among immigrants, and that one-third of the Partnership’s kids—more than in the agency’s general roster of kids—have attempted suicide.

Vaswani also noted that even kids who are well-adjusted—like Gopaul, who said she had no trouble assimilating to life in America—could use the time a mentor like Sherman can offer.

“It’s rewarding to put a little positivity in these kids’ lives,” Vaswani said.

The Partnership is currently active in the Bronx and Queens, but based in the agency’s Queens office because of the diversity of the borough, Vaswani said.

The Queens office, at 89-56 162nd St., in Jamaica, was chosen because of the area’s high concentration of “Littles” in need of Big Brothers and Sisters.  Opened in November 1999, the outpost shares office space and referrals with the Queens Child Guidance Center, a non-profit agency that has been helping troubled youth through counseling and therapy since 1955 and serves about 5,000 families a year.

Vaswani said that the kids being mentored in Big Brothers Big Sisters programs are part of an ethnically and religiously diverse bunch, coming from over 20 different countries.

“It’s such a diverse crowd,” Vaswani said.  “It’s like a little U.N. here.”

Vaswani said that it’s not just low-income families being served by BBBSNYC programs.  Many of them, she said, are immigrants adjusting to the culture, like those in the New American Partnership, and many are simply dual-income families in which the parents don’t have enough time to spend with their children all the time.

Most of the kids, Vaswani said, have some kind of problems adjusting socially and need a stable mentor to help them out.

“Most of the kids are acting out,” Vaswani said.  “Maybe they’re not doing well in school, maybe they’re acting out in class.”

Vaswani noted, however, that Big Brothers and Sisters aren’t meant to be alternate parents, but friends.

“The volunteer mentor is there to be a friend,” Vaswani said.  “Not a parent, or a disciplinarian, or an ATM machine or a Santa Claus.”

Vaswani noted a particular need for male mentors for the Partnership, which currently has about 30 kids and their “Bigs”—half of them male—active and needs to match about five more boys with Big Brothers.

She said there’s a particular need for “Bigs” in the borough who speak Spanish and Korean and that because of the terrorist attack of Sept. 11 she’s been trying to bring South Asian and Middle Eastern kids and mentors into the program, to help the kids deal with the challenges borne out of that event.

Big Brothers and Sisters and the kids they mentor have a wide range of experiences, since BBBSNYC doesn’t make any requirements for what the pairs do on their outings.  The pairs are matched, in fact, based on mutual interests.

“Typically,” Vaswani said, “we encourage activities that give them the opportunity to engage in conversation.”

The agency also encourages activities that are free or low-cost.  Usually, Bigs and Littles meet every two weeks for four hours each time and spend their time together playing in parks, browsing museums, watching movies, taking walks or just sitting and talking.

BBBSNYC also runs monthly group events for all the kids in its programs.  The New American Partnership kids all went bowling at Van Wyck Lanes recently, and are going ice skating next month.

While the programs only require that mentors stay with their assigned kids for one year, the average relationship lasts three years, Vaswani said.  Some of them, she noted, last even longer. One of her Big Brothers, she said, was a Little Brother over 20 years ago and still stays in touch with his Big Brother.

BBBSNYC touts impressive statistics about the effect a Big Brother or Sister can have on a child.  Sixty-nine percent of “Littles” polled, according to the agency, earn higher grades while being mentored, and 67 percent had better school attendance.

About 70 percent said they experienced better family and peer relationships, and 73 percent stayed out of trouble with the law.

Three-quarters said they accepted more responsibility in life, and 91 percent said they had more self-esteem.

Just like the actual mentoring, which must be a commitment of at least one year, matching a child with a BBBSNYC mentor is a long and thorough process in which both sides are interviewed and briefed on the experience.

The process, Vaswani said, is a way for BBBSNYC to make sure that the children and their mentors are compatible and will have a safe and enjoyable time with each other.

Southeast Queens parents who want to match their children with a Big Brother or Big Sister can do so by calling Vaswani at 297-7160.  Immigrant children enrolling in the New American Partnership program need to be between seven and 17 years old; all other kids need to be between 10 and 15.

After their first call and an orientation, parents have one or two interviews with a BBBSNYC social worker.  The children are interviewed separately from their parents.

The interviews sometimes reveal that a Big Brother or Big Sister isn’t appropriate for a child.  Other times, they reveal that a child needs not just a “Big” but additional services, too.

After kids are accepted into the program, they are either matched up with a mentor right away or put on a waiting list.

Because of the shortage of male mentors and the requirement that matches be same-sex, most boys in Southeast Queens, especially those from immigrant families, will be put on the waiting list.

Becoming a mentor is a little bit more involved than enrolling a child.  First, a prospective mentor has to attend an orientation, typically an hour long.  After that he or she can fill out a formal application, which must include three references.  A nationwide criminal background check is also done on the applicant, who must be 21 years old.

An interview with a social worker follows, during which the applicant gets information about a possible child to mentor.

If the social workers are successful at matching a mentor with a parent on paper and both are comfortable with each other, the two parties are introduced.

If that meeting goes well, according to BBBSNYC, the “Big” and the “Little” meet each other.  Success at this last arranged meeting starts the one-year program.

“What we look for in prospective volunteers are personal characteristics rather than professional credentials,” according to BBBSNYC.  “We require that Big Brothers and Big Sisters be stable, responsible, mature individuals who have the patience, humor and flexibility to spend time consistently with a child for at least a year.”