CSC’s education projects provide mentorship and academic support to a variety of learners. While some projects focus on K-12 education, others serve adult learners and their communities. Education projects are dedicated to providing educational equity in underserved areas.
Amigos de UCLA
Amigos de UCLA, established in 1962, is the longest-running tutorial project in the Community Service Commission. Amigos 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 elementary and middle school sites, our little and big amigos build a strong reciprocal relationship in which both tutor and tutee benefit from the experience.
Pilipino Recruitment and Enrichment Program (PREP)
PREP’s main goals are to encourage students to pursue higher education, promote community consciousness, increase cultural awareness and foster leadership skills. PREP engages students in artistic activities to motivate and inspire and hosts Day In A Life (DIAL) workshops by UCLA volunteers. PREP also invites self-identifying Pilipino high school students admitted to UCLA for Bruin Life Weekend.
Project Bruins Reforming Incarceration Through Education (Project BRITE)
Project Bruins Reforming Incarceration Through Education (BRITE)’s primary goal is to explicitly address and combat mass incarceration, an issue that drastically impacts communities in the Los Angeles area. Project B.R.I.T.E.’s goal is not to provide a temporary band-aid for a larger issue while reinforcing power inequalities that create a need for service. Project BRITE works to empower communities through education and advocacy to remove the detrimental systemic structures, not simply remedy the effects.
Asian American Tutorial Project (AATP)
The Asian American Tutorial Project is an all-student run joint tutoring organization between USC, UCLA, and Occidental. Since establishment, members of AATP have served as both tutors and mentors to underprivileged children in the LA community.
Project Literacy
Project Literacy is working to reduce the prevalence of illiteracy in Los Angeles through weekly, one-on-one, individualized mentorship and tutoring. Over 150 children and adults at 9 locations in Baldwin Hills, Mar Vista, Watts, and Vernon receive educational support in disadvantaged communities with historically high rates of illiteracy.
Bruin Animal Rescue Coalition (BARC)
Bruin Animal Rescue Coalition (BARC) at UCLA is a group dedicated to helping animals in Los Angeles. With volunteer programs that go directly to no-kill shelters to spend time with the animals, BARC also supports a program that works to educate students in the Los Angeles area about issues facing shelter animals.
Project Working for Immigrant Literacy Development (Project WILD)
Project WILD volunteers work alongside first and second-generation immigrant students to advance both their academic and overall well being. By mentoring and tutoring elementary and middle schoolers in Arlington Heights and Temple, Project WILD seeks to empower their students.
Learn more here.
The Bruin Experiment
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The Bruin Experiment works to inspire a love of science in middle school students. Volunteers mentor middle-schoolers in the design of their very own science project. These final projects are presented in the annual Bruin Experiment science fair held at UCLA and judged by UCLA professors and graduate students.
SCOPE
SCOPE encompasses 6 unique programs that focus on community service, outreach, education, and empowerment in Los Angeles communities:
- FitNut: Teaches elementary kids about fitness+nutrition
- Hablamos Juntos: Works with UCLA Pediatrics to teach families on how to deal with children’s speech delays.
- All Brains: Arranges events for neurodiverse students at UCLA.
- Patient Health Advocates: Volunteers to connect underserved UCLA patients with helpful resources.
- Youth Empowerment Program (YEP): Mentors Los Angeles youth at elementary schools.
- Pathways for Students Into Health Professions (PSHP): a SCOPE-exclusive undergraduate training program geared for pre-health students and their pathway into the health field.
Learn more here.
Bruin Hope
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BruinHope is a non-profit organization that was founded in 2004. Their goal since has been to serve orphanages in Tijuana Mexico in need of resources. UCLA BruinHope makes four quarterly visits to deliver collections of materials and foods and conduct educational projects. These projects inspire the development of trust and confidence that aid these children in the orphanages to heal from experiences of abuse and abandonment. Bruin Hope fundraises throughout the academic year and accepts donations to purchase toiletries, clothing, cleaning supplies and food for these orphanages.
Storytelling
Each year, Storytelling chooses a general topic and opens the platform for individuals to anonymously share their stories in relation to that topic. Each person is partnered with a Writer who tells their story. At the end of the year, they publish a book filled with these stories, giving people a chance to share their stories and giving others the chance to hear them.
Info will be updated.
The Bruin Initiative
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The Bruin Initiative is a student-run volunteer organization at UCLA that aims to alleviate educational inequality and promote higher education. They believe that all students who want to pursue learning at a higher institution have the right to do so.
This project provides free SAT prep classes (weekends from December to May) and college application workshops (fall for high school seniors) to underserved high school students around Los Angeles.
Vietnamese Language and Culture (VNLC)
VNLC was founded to promote and preserve Vietnamese customs by upholding the values of cultural involvement and educational advocacy. By teaching Vietnamese language classes in the youth community (Saturday Vietnamese Tutorial for K-12 students in San Fernando Valley) and hosting an annual Tet Festival at UCLA, VNLC enables individuals of all ages to engage in and become more aware of traditional Vietnamese activities.
Learn more here.
Bruin Partners (BP)
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Bruin Partners motivate students toward higher education and empower them to reach their full potential as future contributors to society. The Bruin Partners mentorship program visits middle and high schools in the Los Angeles area, where they provide academic and SAT tutoring.
Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA)
VITA provides free federal and state income tax preparation assistance to low- to moderate-income, disabled, and elderly individuals in the Los Angeles community. This project helps and educates people about filing tax returns to help clarify the process and provide assistance to those who otherwise would go without aid.
Learn more here.
Casa Heiwa & Angelina Mentorship Program (CHAMPs)
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CHAMPs provides tutoring and mentorship for youth residents of the Echo Park community. CHAMPs’ goal is to provide exposure to new opportunities and encourage their mentees to pursue secondary education.
Watt’s Tutorial Program
Watts Tutorial Program is a tutoring and mentoring organization at UCLA that serves the children of the Watts and William Mead government housing projects. The program offers one-on-one tutoring sessions and provides nutritious home-cooked meals from many different cultures for our recipients. The Watts Tutorial Program also organizes fun and interactive weekly activities for their service recipients with other UCLA student groups and sports teams.
Learn more here.
Drug Outreach and Education Program (DOEP)
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The Drug Outreach & Education Program (DOEP) serves to educate members of the greater Los Angeles community about illegal, prescription, and recreational drugs. DOEP presents information to students about the history, laws, statistics, and most importantly the physical and physiological effects of these drugs. Their unbiased presentations encourage education and emphasize informed decision-making regarding the use of drugs, rather than discouraging drug use altogether.
Women and Youth Supporting Each Other (WYSE)
WYSE provides the resources and support necessary to empower young women to make confident and informed life decisions and community change. At two middle school sites, WYSE mentee-mentor pairs create long-lasting bonds of trust, respect, and friendship. The program is not only curriculum-based, but includes topics such as mental health, puberty, feminism, and identity, Mentors teach from personal experience and through field trips throughout the year.
Learn more here.
The Glendale Learning Program (GLP)
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The Glendale Learning Project empowers students at Woodrow Wilson Middle School through tutoring and mentorship. This project’s goal is to not only inspire students to gain the confidence to succeed academically but also cultivate a life-long love for learning. It is the program’s wish that its students are inspired to pursue higher education, and are knowledgeable of the career paths it can lead to.
The Writer’s Den
The Writer’s Den is a forum for creative writers at UCLA. They offer writing education for underserved K-12 students in the Los Angeles area. Writer’s Den volunteers work at local high schools, inspiring students to use writing as an outlet for creative expression.
Learn more here.
Kids Korner
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KidsKorner volunteers commute to North Hollywood communities to provide individualized academic support and mentorship to students ages 4-16. Kids Korner also hosts quarterly educational field trips that are free of cost to our service recipients to provide broader learning opportunities as well as foster stronger relationships between the children and volunteers.