The Lotus Project
The Lotus Project
Education, Language, and Cultural Exchange
About Us
The Lotus Project is a volunteer organization dedicated to providing students in Tibet with tutoring services to enhance their English language skills. Being in many ways isolated and underserved, Tibetan students have limited access to native English speakers as well as tutors and mentors from the wider global community. Our mission is to confront this problem by connecting children in Tibet with high-schoolers in Massachusetts for enriching one-on-one online English classes and cultural exchange. We currently serve 40+ students who range in age from kindergarten through college, and our leaders, tutors and Curriculum Committee members work diligently to support learners of every level.
Join the Lotus Project
Apply to be a tutor!
Sign up here to be a tutor for the Lotus Project! Tutoring sessions will be held on Zoom for 30-60 minutes and contact with the students will be through WeChat. Based on the information provided on the form, you will be paired with a student for a trial session.
Join the Curriculum Committee
The Curriculum Committee focuses on creating a comprehensive curriculum with the goal of supporting tutors in their lessons. Our levels consist of Novice, Intermediate, Advanced and Masters, each with three sub-levels. From forming lesson plans to creating ELL resources, the Curriculum Committee works to provide material for every learning level.
Join the Outreach Team
The Outreach Team is in charge of running the Lotus Project instagram, collecting new tutor applications, reaching out to potential partner organizations, and managing our current partnerships!
Curriculum Preview
Student Writing Samples
(by 10 year-old students)
Meet the Team
Leadership
Neena Tarafdar
Founder, Director, Tutor
Neena is a senior at Newton South High School who is passionate about languages and cultural expression, global health, and teaching. She speaks English, Chinese, French, and Spanish, and recently started learning Arabic. Her mom's side of the family is from Tibet and her experience tutoring her cousin inspired her to found the Lotus Project. Neena has been tutoring and teaching English for five years and is excited to work with both new students and tutors!
Linda Xue
Head of Outreach Team, Social Media Manager, Tutor
Linda is a senior at Newton North High School who enjoys reading, writing, gaming, and coding. She loves to bake and play chinese instruments as well. She has already had tutoring experience with math, English and reading, and coding.
Sophia Wu
Head of Curriculum Committee, Tutor
Sophia is currently a senior at Newton South High School, and loves to read, draw, and listen to music during her passtime. Over the course of the pandemic, she has developed a small passion for baking as well. Sophia has had previous tutoring experience in the arts and reading, and is also well-versed in math and writing.
Meet Some of our Tutors!
Susan Hong
Tutor
Susan is a senior at Newton South High School. She's been tutoring with the Lotus Project for two years. Her favorite subjects in school are math and history. In her free time, she enjoys reading webtoons and watching hour-long YouTube videos.
Grace Lu
Tutor
Hanning Lu (Grace) is a junior at Newton South High School who aspires to be a lawyer or a cat lady (or both). She has a deep interest in studying languages, as well as chemistry and social sciences. She is fluent in Mandarin and English, while studying Spanish and Latin. She has tutored English to Chinese students since freshman year.
Jeffrey Lam
Tutor
Jeffrey is a senior at Newton North High School. He has been studying coding since 5th grade, and is part of the joint Newton North and Newton South FRC robotics team known as the Ligerbots. He also has attended and won several hackathons in the recent past. During his free time, Jeffrey enjoys playing cello and electric guitar.
Narayana Hillam
Tutor
Narayana is a senior at Canyon Crest Academy in San Diego, California who loves learning languages and linguistics. He speaks English, Mandarin, and Spanish and is learning Hokkien and Chukchi. Narayana’s experience self-studying Mandarin made him interested in the language acquisition process and teaching his native language to others. He also enjoys math and science and hopes to study chemistry in university.
Angelina Tang
Tutor
Angelina is a senior at Newton South High School who paints, plays video games, bakes, and more. She enjoys making music, playing instruments, and hanging out with friends. She’s had English tutoring experience.
Michael Dai
Tutor
Michael is a senior at Newton North High School who enjoys playing the bamboo flute, gaming and going outside. He has some tutoring experience in math and English.
Sophie Song
Tutor
Sophie is a senior at Newton South High School who enjoys painting, cooking, and dancing. In her free time, she likes traveling and taking pictures of random things. She already has tutoring experience with English and art.
Katie Hu
Tutor
Katie is a senior at Newton North High School. She enjoys art, running, and spending time with her cat named Oreo. She has tutoring experience in English and is a TA in art and Chinese.
Kyle Wu
Tutor
Kyle is a junior at Weston High School. He is interested in physics and hopes to gain experience teaching English by joining the Lotus Project.
Emma Xiao
Tutor
Emma is a junior at Newton North High School. She enjoys dancing, gymnastics, photography, and writing. She also enjoys learning about English and chemistry in school. She coaches children in gymnastics and has experience tutoring math.
Winnie Louie
Tutor
Winnie is a senior at Newton North High School. She enjoys reading, drawing, baking, and playing the piano in her free time. She enjoys teaching and looks forward to to tutoring!
Lisa Liu
Tutor
Lisa is a senior at Newton South High School. She loves doing outdoor activities, singing, baking and enjoys math at school. She was born in China before so she can speak both Chinese and English.
Meet the Curriculum Committee Lead Builders
Alessandra Nagarajan
Curriculum Committee - Lead Builder
Alessandra is a senior at Newton South High School who enjoys dance, music, and reading. She is currently co-president of French Club and Collage Club and teaches dance at Mass Ballet. Studio.
Mulan Zhang
Curriculum Committee - Lead Builder
Mulan is a Junior at The Rivers School in Weston. She enjoys art, playing tennis, and baking. Her favorite subjects in school are math and English. She has had previous teaching experience in tennis and art, and is looking forward to being a part of the Lotus Project!
Waka Miyashita
Curriculum Committee - Lead Builder
Waka is a senior at Newton North High School who enjoys baking, watching Netflix, and playing the clarinet. She also plays karuta, a traditional Japanese game/sport, and spends her free time learning new languages. She has prior experience with tutoring Japanese.
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Henry Kinderman
Curriculum Committee - Lead Builder
Henry is a senior at Newton South High School who enjoys coding, art, baking, and math. They also love to swim and bike in their free time. Henry is excited to work on supporting tutors by helping to build an ELL curriculum!
Meet the Outreach Team!
Ayla Kobi
Outreach Officer
Ayla is a senior at Newton North High School. In her free time, she loves to crochet, read, and play music. Ayla also enjoys spending time with her friends and family. She has experience with graphic design and video editing.
Henry Kinderman
Curriculum Committee - Lead Builder
Erica is a Senior at NNHS who enjoys painting, reading, shodou calligraphy, and poetry. She loves gymnastics and playing jazz pieces from around the world. She has tutoring experiences in Japanese, reading, and math!
Joann
Curriculum Committee - Lead Builder
Joann is a senior at Newton North High School. She grew up in Shanghai and loves to listen to music, watch movies and socialize in her free time.
"My English class is very interesting and it is helping me a lot with school. Right now, I am practicing conversations in English. I think the class is difficult but I am learning so much!"