Meet our Homework Zone Team
The Homework Zone Team is composed of students who coordinate our Homework Zone programs across Montreal, Kahnawà:ke, and Chateauguay. Learn more about them here and discover their experiences with Branches.
2024-25 team
Meet Maia
Hello! my name is Maia Sinkins. I am a coordinator for the Homework Zone program. I am also a Master's student at McGill studying Parasitology. Working with Homework Zone forces you to improve your communication skills. You really have to practice being able to explain a concept in many different ways, and to students with a range of ages and abilities. It’s a bit of a mental challenge but it’s a super important ability. My favourite feeling is always when a student decides that they want to finish their work without me having to encourage them. It shows me that they’re confident with their skills and also that they see Homework Zone as a valuable space rather than a chore.
Working with Branches as a Homework Zone coordinator has offered me the opportunity to grow my own skills while working in the community. It has been super exciting to watch how the Branches program has grown over the past ten years. Branches now has connections to so many communities, and those connections will keep getting stronger in the coming years. If you are a student looking to get involved with outreach to the wider Montreal community Explore McGill is a really good way to be introduced to what we do at Branches. If you enjoy this, Pick Your Path, Explore McGill, and Homework Zone are great ways to continue to volunteer with Branches.
Past program coordinators
Drake D'Souza
Drake is a Management student at Concordia University who joined the former SEDE office in 2018, where he started the Homework Zone program at his alma mater, H.S. Billings High School. At the Branches office, he works as a Homework Zone Program Coordinator, creates study guides for high school students, and assists the Branches team in launching new initiatives.
Clo Soucy
Clo Soucy (they/them) is a genderqueer white settler currently living in Tiohtià:ke (Montreal), and has been with Homework Zone since 2019. They are a recent graduate from McGill University with their M.A. in Education & Society and recently began their Ed.D in Social Justice Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto. Clo’s research focuses on spaces of community-led non-formal learning. They won the 3M National Student Fellowship in 2018 and act as the Awards Coordinator for the Council of Fellows. Clo is always hoping to critically examine oppressive structures, find joy in learning and community connection, and live a little lighter.
Emily Booker
Emily is originally from the traditional territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation) and Tsleil Waututh Nation in North Vancouver, British Columbia. She completed an M.A. in Integrated Studies in Education, researching settler colonialism in education.
Emily was a volunteer at the Kahnawà:ke Survival School for two years, providing homework help for students in gr. 7-11. She then stepped into the role of coordinator for Homework Zone at the same school from from 2018-2020. She is passionate about equity and social justice-based education and is thrilled to be a part of the Homework Zone community.
Ayoub Rebaine
Ayoub was the Homework Zone Program Coordinator at Karonhianónhnha Tsi Ionterihwaienstáhkhwa Elementary School in 2019-20. Majoring in Cognitive Science, Ayoub was previously a Homework Zone mentor at Lasalle Elementary School. It was this experience that made him want to come back and be a part of Homework Zone once again.
He has tutored and been an event leader for high school students and has been a mentor for undergraduate science students. His favourite part of being the coordinator was watching the mentors build a relationship with their mentees. “At first, the mentees may be reserved around their mentor, but week after week they open up more and more and become friends with their mentors”.
