For more than 15 years the Milwaukee Community Service Corps has worked with teenagers and young adults who have struggled in school and need help gaining marketable job skills. Recently they started reaching out to students who are deaf and hearing impaired.
One of the group’s most popular assignments is rehabbing houses. The Milwaukee Community Service Corps sells the rehabbed homes at reasonable prices. Profits go into the next building project.
WUWM’s Susan Bence visited a construction project near 17th and Burleigh to see how the group makes it work.
It’s a treacherous climb up the rickety front steps of this decrepit building on Buffum Street. The house looks more like a demolition job waiting to happen, than a work in progress. This is where the Milwaukee Community Service Corps is teaching its students practical building skills.
A large heater struggles to take the edge off the icicle-cold building. The crew is bundled in layers of clothes to stave off frostbite.
Oscar Aguirre leads this construction crew. He’s conferring with his star student, David, a tall, lanky 19 year old.
"When we started at the beginning, he didn’t know nothing. And you know what, he knows a lot now. He knows mudding, he knows painting, and I mean he knows how to do dry wall,” Oscar said.
I ask what they were working on today.
“I already told him mud and he grabbed up his trays and he’s mudding the corners and when he’s done is corners, I’ll tell him to look around to see if there’s anything I’ve missed,” Oscar said.
It’s a fascinating partnership. Oscar’s job is to teach David the ins and outs of building, while David tries to teach his boss sign language. He’s the Corps’ first member who is deaf. Oscar says they both had a lot to learn.
“We had an interpreter and she was teaching the staff a few signs, and we were writing them down in a notebook, and the first couple of signs we thought, boy this is hard, how are we going to memorize, you know and then all of a sudden we starting working with David and before you know it, it’s not that hard, I mean, you work with someone like David and you just learn it, you learn new words every day,” Oscar said.
I ask David how he got started with the Corps and Oscar struggles to translate. Oscar says it’s much easier when they work side by side. But translating for an outsider, with unexpected questions, is a whole different story.
“We have a system and a rhythm when it has to do with the work, but when something that’s out of the ordinary, you know, I don’t know certain signs for what you’re asking or to explain, because I can go to David and say hey, go grab me the drill, he already knows that,” Oscar says.
Eventually David tells me through Oscar, he planned on becoming a car mechanic until he started working on the construction crew. Now when he finishes the program this spring, David will be the Corps’s first hearing impaired graduate.
Since David joined, more people who are hearing impaired have joined the Corps. 26-year-old Shatika, who likes to be called Benny, just came on board. She works with Oscar too.
“Like I said, she just started two months ago, and she’s on her own. This is her room and I tell 'em, the bathroom is the most important room, because you spend a lot of time there, and you watch for details, alright. So the bathroom has to be perfect,” Oscar says.
I ask if Benny wants to be a builder one day. Their hands fly and Oscar concentrates on Benny’s every move.
“Okay, so she’s going to school for math right now, but now that she’s worked here, she wants to be a trade. She even wrote it on the wall the other day, she wants to do welding and the trade,” says Oscar.
Oscar pieces together Benny’s message. She says she’s also building friendships.
“Working here they have more relationships with the other Corps members,” Oscar says.
Oscar says he’s proud to teach his young apprentices skills they’ll use the rest of their lives. But, he doesn’t try to hide a selfish motive. He’s longed to learn sign language for years.
“I’m not going to lie to you. I mean, this has been great. Because when I was a kids I remember and seeing and I was like, I wanna learn that, but I never had the opportunity to do it. So this is good,” says Oscar.
Service Corps leaders say people who have disabilities, including hearing impairment, work on construction crews around the country. They’ll help David and his fellow Corps members land the best jobs that can be had with public and private companies.
Share / Email
Print
Email a Friend
Facebook
Del.icio.us
Stumble Upon
Digg
Newsvine
