Since 2015, dozens of students at UT Austin have used their foreign language skills for good, serving refugee and asylee families within Austin AISD each week through the Refugee Student Mentorship Program.

In 2015, the University of Texas at Austin’s Middle Eastern Studies (MES) program began a collaboration with the Austin Independent School District (AISD) to provide an essential service to our community and volunteer opportunities for Longhorn students with foreign language skills, where the college students serve as mentors to refugee students in AISD elementary, middle and high schools. While the program began with a focus on supporting students resettling from Arabic and Persian-speaking countries, it has now expanded to serving refugee students from a variety of language backgrounds. When possible, the Refugee Student Mentorship Program (RSMP) aims to match UT mentors and mentees who speak a shared language, and recruit UT students who study or speak relevant languages.

Refugee students have resettled in Austin with their families from countries including Afghanistan, Syria, and DR Congo, who often begin school in the U.S. with no prior schooling due to histories of displacement and disrupted education. UT Austin student volunteers are matched with one or more AISD students and serve as mentors, meeting weekly with their mentees at their school during lunch, advisory period, or after school. These mentoring connections provide an additional layer of support for refugee students to build English skills in a safe, one-on-one or small group container outside the classroom setting; and more importantly, to build a trusting relationship with a near-peer. “My students are very grateful” says UT PhD student & RSMP volunteer Estefania Valenzuela. “They’re just so happy someone is speaking to them in Arabic.”

During a mentoring session, matches may practice English vocabulary, do schoolwork, or play games and activities. This year the program has grown to serve even more refugees by offering their services to Pflugerville ISD as well as AISD. In the 2024-2025 school year, 39 UT student mentors served 64 refugee students across 8 middle and high schools. Mentors spend anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours per week with their mentees, and try to remove any educational barriers that may prevent them from thriving in their new home. “I think about all of their parents and how their one true desire is for their children to have a better life, to not live in fear,” says RSMP volunteer & PhD student Andrew Akhlaghi. “If I can help them achieve that goal by simply showing up for 3 hours a week – it’s an easy yes.” The bonds that these students create will be shared for a lifetime and have profound impacts on the lives of so many children and families who now call Central Texas home.