Real Life continues to support many refugee and immigrant teens in gaining essential life skills.  During the 2020-2021 school year, Real Life served at eleven welcome centers and directly influenced over 400 youth from low-income families.  Real Life utilizes 120+ Real Life interns and volunteer mentors.

We are grateful to our community partners for helping make Real Life possible.  Last year, Real Life partnered with Promise South Salt Lake, Refugee Immigrant Center – Asian Association of Utah, Umoja Generation, Salt Lake City School District, and Granite School District.   Due to complications caused by COVID-19, we were unable to begin our partnership with Project Access but are happy to announce this partnership was able to resume this year.

Real Life Interns and volunteer mentors administered curriculum based on financial literacy, career & college readiness, communication, civic engagement, social and cultural activities, physical and emotional health, STEM and art expression.  Interns and mentors also provide the participants with one hour of homework help each day.  There was improvement in every core subject among teens due to our programming.

The situation with COVID-19 created many challenges in the 2020-2021 school year. Real Life was flexible in offering in-person or virtual programming based on the needs of each of our sites. Some sites utilized a primarily a virtual program while others transitioned between in-person or virtual as needed. Real Life was grateful to be meeting in-person at 10 of 11 sites by the end of the school year last year. Real Life is dedicated, more than ever, in providing necessary services and growing with our mission to support refugee and immigrant youth in gaining essential life skills.  As a result, Real Life continues to improve lessons, increasing curriculum quality, ESL friendliness and active learning components.