At El Camino a diverse program has been serving all students with different ethnicities to help them be successful by graduating and transferring to either the Cal-State or UC System.

The group was founded by the following counselors Bill Cooper, Carolyn Kalil, Cheryl Beverly and Elaine Moore.

The program called “Project Success” has offered counseling, math tutors, priority registration, scholarships, cooked lunches, book vouchers, book loans and field trips to various universities, Nikki Barber, counselor of Project Success, said.

“This year is our 30th year of the program and students can enroll either in my office or Brian Mims Coordinator of Project Success here in the Counseling Center,” Barber said.

Students enrolled in the program have to see a madaba which means mentor in Kiswahili in Africa and have to see them twice a month as requirement of the program, Barber said.

“We are open to all students to join the program, we just run it through an African-American perspective,” Mims said.

The classes that are offered by Project Success are available to other ethnic groups as well, Mims added.

“We have had some Asian, Latinos and Latinas who have joined the program as well,” Mims said. “About two percent of students with different ethnicities have joined the group.”

Students who enrolled in Project Success had this to say about the program.

“It has been helpful the way they have been taking us on tours to really get a feel of what universities we would like to transfer to,” Ashanti Harris, 19 chemical engineering major said. “They also have agreements with HBCU’s (Historically, Black, College and University), so that we can get in for a reduced price and a different amount of unit requirements.”

The program is very good for any student to attend and the help is vastly among all students, according to Harris.

Other students who enjoyed the program include Briana Little, 23, Kinesiology major.

“I wanted to be part of a program to help me stay on track and to be disciplined about my work and do my homework and study and set aside time to do other work than just my daily routine outside of school,” Little said.

Little has applied to a number of Cal-State Universities such as Cal-State LA, Cal-State Northridge, Cal-State Dominguez Hills, Cal-State Poly and Cal-State Fullerton.

While Harris has a main goal of UC Berkeley as her transfer choice.

Another student who is enrolled in the program, Armanti Weeks, 19, English major was introduced to Project Success through the KEAS program (Knowledgeable, Engaged, Aspiring Students) which is geared toward English and Math Students.

“This program is very beneficial to me especially in my Psych 10 class which is African-American Psychology,” Weeks said.