NEWSBYRACHEL LEVENSON

This is part 5 of an 11-part series on Undergraduate Social Entrepreneurship coordinated by the Social Innovation Initiative at Brown University. This post's author is Rachel Levenson, Chief Coordinator of BRYTE.

In nonprofit work, it's often the "Wouldn't it be great if...?" questions that propel development and change. As I've had a chance to learn firsthand, among college students, the combination of enthusiasm and naiveté creates an environment particularly conducive for such questions.

During the fall of my junior year at Brown, I began to coordinate Brown Refugee Youth Tutoring and Enrichment (BRYTE). As the young, ambitious leader of a young, ambitious organization, I had ideas coming out of my ears about directions for the group, and particularly about ways in which I could leverage my status as a student to best serve Providence's refugee community.

BRYTE, a student-led, weekly in-home refugee tutoring and mentoring organization, works in partnership with the International Institute of Rhode Island, the primary refugee resettlement organization in the state. Formed in the fall of 2006 by a Brown student who spent her summer working at the International Institute, as an organization, BRYTE began with close ties to its community partner. Early on, its founder, for example, met with staff at the Institute on a weekly basis to monitor the development of BRYTE.

But by the time I assumed leadership two years later, ties between BRYTE leadership and the Institute had weakened.