Student Presentations are a much anticipated aspect of VEP Global Gathering, Tutor Training Workshop, and Annual Spring Event programs.
The following individuals are just a few of those who have shared their personal stories in person so that others will be inspired to learn English while encouraging compassion and tolerance among all of us.
Mariana Ionescu, VEP Student Presenter – Global Gathering
Hello, my name is Mariana. This is my story.
I came to the United States four years ago from Romania, with my husband and my son Alex. We are living together in Downingtown, Pennsylvania. In Romania, I studied electrical and mechanical engineering, and I worked in Human Resources at a coal mining company for 25 years. My husband was a coal mining engineer. He went into the mines twice a week, and also worked in emergency mining, going into the mines after explosions or fires. After 20 years
as an engineer, he had the opportunity to retire early with a pension. Soon after we both retired, we began a new chapter in our lives. My husband and son wanted to live in America for opportunity. In 2013, we came together to the United States on a lottery visa.
Soon after we arrived, our friend Ray hired my husband, son, & myself as subcontractors cleaning medical office buildings. Four years ago, our family opened our own subcontracting cleaning company {name?}. Cleaning was the only type of work we could do since we didn’t speak English. In the evening we clean medical offices, laboratories, surgery centers, radiology offices, dentist offices, and physical therapy centers. We work very hard all week, five or six nights a week from about five o’clock until one or two in the morning. Sometimes I talk to people at our jobs when they stay late after work, to practice my English. It’s very difficult in the winter because we have to battle the snow and ice to get to our jobs, and then it’s a lot of extra work to clean the mud, ice, gravel and salt from the carpets in the offices. On Sundays, I cook our family’s meals for the week.
It was not easy for my family and me to begin a new life in another country, especially because we didn’t speak English. In school, I studied French and German, so while I know three languages, I only knew about ten words in English when we arrived in the United States. Soon after we arrived, we applied for an English program in Exton at the library, but we were not lucky. They didn’t choose us and weren’t able to provide us a tutor to learn English. Two years later, in 2015, we found the VEP of Chester County and here we were lucky, because in the shortest time we had a tutor. His name is Mark.
Now, my family and I study twice a week at the Downingtown library with our tutor. It is a small amount of time, but Mark is a very good tutor. Usually, the VEP does not tutor families together, but ours was a special case because of our work schedule. Mark explains and answers all of our questions and he has a lot of patience with us. Pronunciation is very difficult for us because the vowel sounds are different in Romania.
A good contribution to our English lesson has been Karen, Mark’s wife. While Mark teaches us, Karen teaches Alex separately. Sometimes, when our study room in the library is busy, we have English lessons at all sorts of places: the Kimberton store, Wegman’s café, the bowling alley, the art store in Yellow Springs, our apartment, or Mark’s house. (Karen and Mark are very good hosts)! Mark helps us in so many ways. For example, he accompanied us to the bank, to the insurance company, to the franchise for our new company, to draw up contracts with our clients. He introduced us to SCORE, a nonprofit in Chester County that provides help to small business owners. Our families also go together to community events, like the fall festival and farmers’ market in Downingtown. We were volunteers together at a tree planting for the Brandywine Conservancy. He sends us messages and emails about local events: farmers’ markets, old car shows, free Wawa coffee, etc. Mark and Karen help to make us feel like we are part of the community here in America.
My son Alex studied management at the University of Petroşani in Romania for a year and a half. Two years ago, he opened his own subcontracting cleaning franchise {name}. He is very motivated. Sometimes he’ll drive around and photograph construction signs where they’re building new offices, and then ask Mark to help him email the companies to see if they will need a cleaning company for their new building. He was able to get three new clients this way.
I have to study English. It is very important for me because I want to be successful in this country to realize my dream of living here, working here, and becoming a U.S. citizen. The VEP made our family’s dream possible. Now, I can say: We are successful in this country. But we have to continue our business to be fully successful. We were lucky because we met many people around us who helped us a lot. Thank you, Ray, because you gave us a chance to work for you when we didn’t know anyone.
Thank you, all our friends from our Romanian community, who gave us a place to stay when we first arrived. Thank you, VEP. And thank you, Mark and Karen.
Sylvia Ramirez- Cubos, Alumni Student Guest Speaker, Spring Fund Raising Event
My name is Silvia Ramirez-Cubos. I am from Toluca, Mexico, located 39 miles southwest of Mexico City. My town is considered to be the fifth largest city in Mexico in population. My native language is Spanish. I have a degree in the Art of Communication at the Faculty of Political Science at UAEM (University Autonomy of the State of Mexico). I used to work at the Communication Department in a Government office, and part time history teacher. I’m divorced and I have 2 beautiful daughters: Rebecca 18 years old and Sarah 17 years old.
I came to the United States on January 6th, 1996, because I got married to an American citizen, at that time I came with a Tourist Visa. Then I became a resident, got my green card, and became legal in this country. I remembered I was so excited to see all the snow and took pictures everywhere because all this was new to me. The excitement only lasted for a few days, because there was a big storm and I wasn’t able to go out. At that time, we lived in an apartment in Coatesville. My first experience going out by myself was to the grocery store. I remembered asking for a kilogram of ham, and the butcher mocking me. He started to talk and I did not understand. I then decided to ask for 500 grams of ham, but he ignored me completely and continued attending the other clients, as if I were invisible. At that time, I had a very strong cultural shock. I found the first barrier, was not only the language, but also the measurement system, such as pounds instead of kilograms, miles instead of kilometers, yards instead of meters, inches instead of centimeters. It took me a few years to get used to and learn it. This cultural shock caused me a lot of tears, lack of confidence, and depression.
So I made a promise to myself, to learn English. I started to attend local churches who offered English classes. Then everything changed because around that time my husband and I bought a house. So, it made it impossible for me to continue attending the classes, because I could not walk to the classes and I could not drive since I didn’t have a driver’s license.
Then my daughters were born and I started to babysit a couple kids and I stopped learning English. When my oldest daughter started preschool at Head Start, I remembered my family service Worker Carmen Rodriguez, told me about the Volunteer English Program. She gave me a flyer and I called and applied for an English tutor. I was happy when I received the call saying I got a tutor Jennifer Alexander who had 2 children the same age as my daughters, and she came to my house to teach me. She then aided me to get a membership at the YMCA and enrolling my girls at the swimming classes and soccer. This step in my life was wonderful because I had the opportunity to do something different than to just be in my house. Jennifer also helped me get my library card, and helped me study so I could get my driver’s license. Everything seemed to go very well but Jennifer had to move to Germany because her husband worked for the Army.
Then I waited 11 months to get another English tutor. In this moment I meet Cynthia Lyman, “my angel”. She started to teach me hands on, learning to read labels from cans, packets of soup, and etc. She encouraged me to be a volunteer at my daughter’s school Head Start and to buy a computer. Not only that but she also helped me in opening an email account, and helped me by having the World Education Services recognize my bachelor’s degree.
At this time, Head Start (preschool) offered me an assistant teacher position. Cynthia played an important role in my life here, she encouraged me to take the job when I wasn’t sure that I would even be able to do it, but I accepted the job. Cynthia taught me English two times a week for an hour and a half for three years. When the time came around for me to apply to get my citizenship she helped me with all the questions. I remembered one time I was having difficulty with the questions and it made me upset. Then Cynthia got me flash cards with all the questions for the citizenship exam, it was easy for me to use this method to study. Every time I saw her it gave me self-confidence and motivated me. I was blessed to have successfully passed the citizenship exam and become a citizen of the United States on September 28, 2007.
Around the same time the director of the Head Start Program told me I got a grant to go back to school to get the teacher certification, and promoted me to the teacher position. I wasn’t sure as to whether I should accept it so I reached Cynthia, and as always she encouraged me to accept it. She helped me with the process of enrollment into school. At the time Cynthia told me how important it is being independent and the role of woman in this country. As you can see not only did she teach me English, but also introduced me to the American culture, and life skills.
My first class at collage was Linguistics. This class was very difficult for me and I was depressed that I didn’t understand most of the things that the teacher said. I remembered crying and calling Cynthia the next day, telling her I would quit but she didn’t let me. She encouraged me to keep going until I finished school on May 2011 at the Immaculata University.
To have learned English, brought me many benefits such as:
- Make a doctors’ appointment by phone,
- Schedule on the computer the Parent Teacher Conferences, and discuss my daughters progress in school
- Be part of the PTO at my daughter’s school,
- Return items at customer service without help,
- June 2013 winning an award for Teacher of the Year by the Childhood Education Coalition of Chester County.
- May 2013 Receiving an Outstanding Service Award by the Chester County Intermediate Unit
- May 2015 getting the Interpreter Certification and being part of one of the CCIU interpreters.
- I recently helped my daughter to fill out an application for the Newlyn Foundation, Fasfa and others grants in order for her to go to College. I’m very proud to announce to you that she got a full scholarship to attend 4 years at West Chester University.
Thanks to VEP I improved my standard of living, in the same way I can help others improve theirs. Therefore I currently work as a family service worker with low-income families and it gives me the opportunity to pay forward what the VEP did for me. For example: Engage parents in the educational process, teach parents about health, safety, and nutritional needs for their family; provide interpretation face to face and phone calls, and support services to students and teachers who speak Spanish, interpreting for parent teacher conferences, IEP meetings, policy council, parent meetings. All this is related to the family and their environment, which results in the VEP motto “Building Community in Chester County”.
Today I ask myself, at what point did I learn English and stopped translating in my mind from Spanish to English and vice versa. I don’t know the answer, but I deeply thank God and VEP for the opportunity of meeting Cynthia and learning this language. It gave me the opportunity to succeed and help my daughters as well.
There are not enough words to say GRACIAS!
Gina Hernandez Urbina, Global Luncheon Student Guest Speaker
“Good morning every one, my name is Gina Urbina, I from Barranquilla-Colombia. My husband is Javier and we have three children. I worked as an accountant in Colombia and my goal is to be an accountant here. Now I care for my children and I have a part time job cleaning a school.
I came here with my family about 2 and half years ago. When I moved here I spoke little English. I knew only some letters, number, animal, colors and other little things. It was very hard for me, because I could not understand.
I visited the library very close to my house and I remember, I only said “English class?” The people at library gave me a card with the information for the Volunteer English Program. I called many times and finally I had an appointment.
I took the test and two months after I met with my tutor. I received some books and we spoke about our schedule.
My first tutor was a very nice teenager. She helped me very much. I learned many things with her. She went to college and now I have a wonderful lady, her name is Connie.
Today, maybe I can’t understand all but, I can resolve some situations in my life, for example in my children’s school, doctors, dentist, search information in the library and other things. In my last parents conference I had no translator and I could understand and share my opinion with the teachers. That was a great achievement for me.
The Volunteer English Program is a great opportunity for immigrants, because I know that to learn English is a principal step in the process of adaptation in this country. We can have better opportunities for job, education and other kinds of relationships.
In the past two years, my tutors help me with school papers, applications, resume and teach me how I can answer calls or how to answer the question in an interview.
Now I feel more confidence when I talk and in my relationships. My life is much better.
Today I want to say to the volunteer English Program and especially my tutors, staff and sponsors, thank you so much for your wonderful support and friendship.
Now, new tutors Thank you for helping others, we need your help and support, It’s not easy to be in a new place and not understand or speak the language.
You not only teach English, you can be change in our lives with your motivation and encouragement.
One more time, one thousand thank yous.”