Chinese Newcomers Service Center Fall 2013

About me:

My name is Nick Wu and I am currently having an internship in Chinese Newcomers Service Center(CNSC) located in Chinatown. I am a sophomore and an international student from Tsingtao(Qingdao), China. My major is Entrepreneurship & Innovation. I am glad to be offered with the internship from USF Public Service Internship Program. I think this is a win-win relationship between me and CNSC, I can help them on different kinds of issues, I am also able to learn a lot from it. Since most of Chinese people we help speak Cantonese, it can help me improve my Cantonese proficiency. Also, as an sophomore International student, I’m also considered as a Chinese newcomer, which means I belong to their target group of people, too. I need to learn about the US Tax Code, Insurance system, Social Security System, and housing purchasing or renting process.

Organization:

Chinese Newcomers Service Center is a non-profit organization located on the boundary of Chinatown, financial district and downtown San Francisco. It helps new Chinese immigrants by providing free or low-charge services to help them adapt to the American life. It provides almost all kinds of issues that a Chinese newcomer might face when they first come to America, including Newcomers Workshops (tax, jobs, housing), immigration and naturalization services, informational referral, class (computer, smartphone, piano, English). It serves as a bridge between Chinese and American culture, and helps the newcomers to become self-sufficient contributing members of the community.

My role in this organization is administrative coordinator. I started from the front desk services, directly talking to Chinese newcomers who need help, these issues usually includes explaining letters or forms that they can’t understand due to their low proficiency in English, answering question about workshops that is coming up, answering phones, etc. I spent most of my time filling in application forms for them. Due to the limited funding of CNSC, we charge five to ten dollars to fill in forms that they need. It was pretty challenging for me because the language I speak is Mandarin, but most of our clients are Cantonese speakers, I can understand most of them but have low proficiency speaking Cantonese. My executive director, Mrs. Mah encouraged me a lot and I worked out those forms solely on my own. After those hours long conversation and form filling, I can actually feel the improvement on my Cantonese skill.

Project:

After getting used to the working environment and the language, next week or the following week I will start work on the accounting of CNSC. I will also meet with the director of the Tax program, George, so I can contribute more to CNSC because Tax Program is the only program that is opening on Saturday, which I have a lot of free time. From now to the end of my internship, my biggest project will be working on planning for the CNSC Food Drive that will be held on Dec. 5th, which distribute a large amount of free food from donation to people in Chinatown.

Progress Report 1:

My main job during my daily work is to help Chinese immigrants or newcomers to translate forms, make phone calls, and fill in forms. I’ve filled in more than 5 kinds of forms, including low-income housing application, employment application, Medi-Care and Medi-Cal application and CalFresh application. This task seems simple, but actually, it is very challenging. I sit with individual clients face-to-face, translate and ask them for questions that are mentioned on the form, each form takes 45 minutes on average. It really helps me practice my customer services skill that is widely used in business field, because I need to be kind, patient and energetic all the time. I also utilized knowledge of accounting I learned from college this semester. Because sometimes the form asks for the total assets, then I ask the clients about their properties including their housing, cash and balance in their bank account, etc. Language is the toughest part of this task. Since my Cantonese skill is limited, it usually takes longer to help Cantonese speakers than Mandarin speakers, I either tried to speak in different word or write it down in Chinese. The good thing is, now I can hold conversations with Cantonese clients now.

The details of my biggest project have come out! CNSC Community Food Drive 2013 will be held on Dec. 5th from 1 p.m. – 4 p.m. at two locations:  Chinatown Portsmouth Square and Visitacion Valley Hans Schiller Plaza Park, 5,000 free food package will be distributed to low income households and people with disability. CNSC will collaborate with our community partners such as San Francisco Food Bank, Woodside International School and Treasure Island Job Corps.

I am also helping CNSC plan on this December’s biggest event in CNSC. I created the memo of Blocked metered parking request. We’ve contacted with SFMTA to request to block ten metered parking during the food drive day in order to provide parking places for the food truck, and the request will be replied a week before the event.

Besides CNSC Food Drive, I’m also helping an Employment Program Representative from Employment Development Department (EDD) create the survey of the effectiveness of the Job Searching Workshops in CNSC.