Norwich — At least two want to be a doctor, another a computer scientist and several others are eyeing nursing careers in America, but they all were recently sitting in a classroom at the Rose City Learning Center working on the one skill that will help make their dreams come true: English.
Woodly Mars, an 18-year-old native of Haiti and a speaker of Creole and French, said he is attending classes at the learning center, based at the CT State Community College Three Rivers, in hopes of pursuing his goal of being a heart doctor. It’s a dream that seemed unlikely amid the current chaos and violence in Haiti as starvation and gang warfare mounts.
“It was difficult for me to fight for more opportunity to help me and my family in the world,” Mars said shortly after his two-hour class. “And I come here to find more opportunity to learn English.”
Fifty-two-year-old Ruiter Pereira spent 32 years in the Brazilian military reserve, earning a master’s degree in computer science along the way. A native speaker of Portuguese, he’s currently in the United States on a tourist visa with wife Cinthia while his daughter attends ninth grade at St. Bernard School.
Stephanie Moril, another 18-year-old native of Haiti here with her two older sisters, found out she couldn’t take classes at Norwich Free Academy because she had aged out, so she came to the learning center to improve her English. She’s currently taking both morning and afternoon classes in hopes of acing her GED high school equivalency exam.
All the students attend classes for two hours Monday through Thursday, then must practice for 15 to 20 minutes daily on a program called EnGen, which gears instruction to the type of job each individual hopes to attain. The learning center also helps students connect to childcare help, transportation and other services.
“What makes us unique is that everything we do is geared towards the workforce,” said Kelly Ennis-Davis, a longtime teacher who started up the Rose City Learning Center as a nonprofit just a few months ago.
The amazing thing about many of the students, she added, is that they often come highly credentialed in their home country. One is a speech pathologist, another a lawyer, a third an aircraft mechanic, and there are also people trained in education, pharmacy, banking, accounting and contracting.
Ennis-Davis, who used to teach at the Norwich Adult Education program as well as in public school systems in the region, said she realized a program for non English-speaking adults trying to win employment in the United States was an important niche not properly addressed in the Norwich area. And the demand is huge, with 64 students currently enrolled in her program and dozens of others on a waiting list to get in even though classes have been running only a few weeks.
At Norwich Adult Ed, she said, there was an English-class waiting list of 300 this fall, up from 200 a year ago.
“I think just being in this setting does a lot for them, being in a modern setting,” Ennis-Davis said, looking around at her nearly two dozen students attending a recent Monday class.
According to statistics the program compiled just last week, more than three-quarters of the students have at least a high school diploma in their home country, and a quarter have a bachelor’s degree or better. About two-thirds have been in the United States fewer than two years, and 81% hail from Haiti, apparently attracted by the large Haitian population in Norwich.
Nearly half the students hope to find a job here in the healthcare industry. Business, information technology and trade are other top fields being considered by students, whose average age is only 35.
Ennis-Davis said students are not asked for documentation of legal immigration status to attend the program because it is not legal to ask; they are accepted on a first come, first served basis. Those who cannot get into the learning center program are referred to the Haitian Community Center of Greater Norwich, which offers classes at night.
Ennis-Davis and two other members of the Rose City Learning Center team are working on the program as volunteers, in hopes of generating enough funding from grants and private donations to eventually be paid and perhaps expand someday. The center already received a grant from the Community Foundation of Eastern Connecticut, as well as donations from other private businesses and individuals.
The classes are free, and Three Rivers has offered its classroom to the program without charge. In addition to Ennis-Davis, who teaches morning classes, the learning center staff includes Mikayla Punsalan, the afternoon instructor, and Andrea Dawley, who offers support services to students such as resume writing, job fairs and interviewing skills. They all previously worked at Norwich Adult Ed.
“This has huge ripple effects in the community,” Ennis-Davis said. “There’s so many people who are hiring and there’s all these good paying, high demand jobs available. … It’s just that English piece that’s holding them back.”
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Publish date : 2024-10-05 07:04:00
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