Mission

Through commitment to education and our local workforce, we provide guidance, training, and support for career readiness and employee retention to job seekers, employers, and our community by engaging participants in comprehensive career pathway solutions.

Vision

Connection Our Community to the Workforce

History

Bilingual Education Institute (BEI) has been serving refugee and immigrant students for over 35 years. During the last thirty years, BEI has provided ESL/Vocational classes to thousands of new immigrants, refugees, asylees, trafficking victims, and visitors from abroad who represent all social, educational, ethnic and economic levels. BEI provides quality teaching to our students, motivating them to achieve in academics, business, and in global and local communities. Achievements in these areas empower our students in language learning and enable them to demonstrate advancements in their language abilities. BEI has experience in teaching English in various capacities: Basic Literacy, ESL, Intensive English Program, Job Readiness, and Workplace ESL including but not limited to safety and job-related speaking and vocabulary courses. Our job related classes have worked with many different types of industries: food service, restaurants, and hotels, manufacturing, and heating and cooling insulation. BEI is part of a Houston Refugee Consortium of refugee service providers who have been working in partnership for the last 20 years. The consortium of agencies partner is sharing State funding such as RSS, TAG, and TAD in an effort to provide more efficient and holistic services to refugees resettled in Houston. For the past 10 years, BEI has been the primary contractor for all RSS Education Services Programs and has extensive experience in training, consulting, and monitoring programmatic and fiscal compliance to ensure the successful outcomes of partnering programs.
In 1988, BEI was one of the few private schools in Texas authorized by the US Immigration and Naturalization Service to teach English and Civics to the newly legalized immigrants who had received amnesty in Houston area. In 1991, BEI became a consortium subcontractor with Houston Community College System providing ESL (levels 1, 2 & 3) funded by the National Literacy Act (NLA) of 1991, P.L. 102-73. In 1992, BEI was awarded an outreach grant by the Governor’s Campaign against Employment Discrimination, for which BEI received an outstanding recognition from the Governor for services provided. From 1995 to 1997, BEI provided students, most of whom were refugees, Bilingual Office Administration Training. The program was funded by JTPA Title II-A, II-C/ Houston Works. In 1996, BEI received a grant for Texas Citizenship Initiative (Citizenship Outreach) from TDHS, Office of Immigration and Refugee Affairs. BEI has been serving the education needs of the refugee population in Harris County since 1991, through RSS, TAG, and TAD grants from TDHS, today known as HHSC.
Based upon our extensive involvement in the community, BEI identified the need expand our community involvement and to establish a non-profit agency, named The Center for Career Transformation (CCT). CCT is a 501(c) (3) established in September 2016. CCT is committed to transforming lives by offering comprehensive solutions that lead to better employment through education, knowledge, and career services in the greater Houston area. Specifically, services will include, but are not limited to language training, cultural orientation, vocational training, career counseling, professional skills development, and employment placement solutions with the goal of attaining career upgrades and enhanced self-sufficiency.