We are excited to welcome Chloe Daikh to New Ventures Maine! Chloe started a full-time service year as AmeriCorps VISTA College Access and Success Coordinator for the Augusta area on August 1st.
Chloe grew up in Portland, Maine and is a 2021 graduate of Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in History with honors and Classics. Since graduating, she has traveled extensively in the U.S., worked as a barista, studied modern standard Arabic through the Qasid Arabic Institute online, and completed a three-month volunteer assignment at a refugee camp in Palestine, where she continued to develop her colloquial Arabic skills.
As she was planning for her move from Palestine back to the U.S., she heard about the NVME AmeriCorps position and applied. “I was particularly attracted to the position because of the language requirement,” she said. “I love learning languages and I’m excited to be able to use my Arabic language skills to help build capacity for fighting poverty in Central Maine.”
Having worked one-on-one with first-year, international, and peer students in two writing fellowships in college (and also having served as an AVID tutor, camp counselor, and trainer between 2018 and 2020), Chloe was interested in gaining experience in nonprofit administration. “I’m looking forward to learning about how decisions are made and I want to strengthen my skills in program administration.”
The position was also a good fit for Chloe because of her interest in education and increasing access to educational opportunities. “I believe that many of the resources that I’ve found helpful are designed for people like me, who are born in the U.S.,” she said. “They are not structured to take into account the particular challenges of the people they are meant to help.” She is interested in helping to change that.
As NVME’s College Access and Success Coordinator, Chloe will provide support to increase access to and retention in higher education for low-income people of all ages. Her responsibilities will also include connecting adult learners with financial literacy programs and other services on campus and in the community. In addition, she will work with student volunteers to raise awareness of food insecurity on campus and provide easy access to food on and off campus.
New Ventures Maine is still accepting applications for the AmeriCorps VISTA College Access and Success Coordinator position based at UMA Bangor. For more information, visit the Campus Compact website.