Brazilian Worker Center

You Can Help us with our Daily Work: Fighting Social and Economic Injustice and Supporting Hard-Working Immigrants, Who are Really Americans-in-Waiting.

Volunteers can perform many important daily tasks at the Center:

Every day we receive visits and calls about how people in our community are being marginalized economically, abused verbally and even physically by their bosses, and by many our social institutions that prey on vulnerable people.

Volunteer opportunities are organized based on the time you can commit to us.

If you can commit to volunteer for at least 6 hours per week, for a period of at least 3 months, or one academic semester, these are possibilities:

1. Assist with organization of workshops
2. Assist with outreach programs
3. Provide callers with basic information
4. Discuss with callers/visitors what resources might be available to help resolve their problems
5. Tutor ESOL students who are taking Basic English classes
6. Maintaining and updating the Center’s website, Facebook, and Twitter accounts
7. Call employers about wage theft complaint cases
8. Return calls to workers
9. Be part of program committees
10. Represent BWC in meetings, rallies, lobby days, marches, and other community events.

If you are a JD student you can intern with our immigration or labor attorneys and support us with the following tasks:

11. Conduct client intakes
12. Issue spot and conduct appropriate legal research
13. File appropriate complaints with the Attorney General’s office or the Department of Labor
14. Draft demand letters, complaints, contracts, settlement agreement
15. If 3:03 certified, they can represent clients in small claims and district court
16. Draft and respond to discovery documents
17. Participate in mediation and alternative dispute resolution with clients
18. Give community legal education presentations to the local community

If you only have only a few hours per week (2 or 3) and can’t commit to a fixed schedule for at least three months, you can still help with many tasks and activities. Tasks that volunteers can be assigned include, but are not limited to:

19. To greet and help workers with intake
20. Answer the telephone and take notes about who called and why
21. Relate the message to the appropriate staff person when necessary
22. Create and properly label files for new workers’ rights cases, and discrimination cases
23. Data entry, creating client files, drafting emails, and documents
24. Prepare bulk mailings
25. Help maintain the center clean
26. Accompanied by BWC staff, attend meetings, rallies, lobby days, marches and other community events.
27. Helping to interpret conversations or translate documents (when necessary)
28. Help clients make phone calls to banks, schools, businesses, etc.
29. Transfer intake forms from log book to computer

How do you sign up?

All volunteers begin the process by being interviewed for suitability by Center staff.

Complete an identification/application form [If you are applying on-line, send this form to

ntracy@braziliancenter.org].

Read and sign the confidentiality statement.

Receive orientation and training from BWC staff.

You are also welcome to visit us! We are open Monday through Friday 10am-4pm

Address: 14 Harvard Ave 2nd Floor Allston, MA 02134 – 617-783-8001