ELI collaboration with Department of Labor bears fruit for immigrant population

The year 2006 brought many occasions for celebration to ELI grad Tidiane Wann. In May he received his MBA from Wilmington College. His oldest son, a 2006 graduate of Concord High School, received a full scholarship from MBNA to study at the University of Delaware in the fall.

Tidiane Wann of Guinea received an MBA from Wilmington College in May.

And then he bought a house––no small achievement for someone who spent his first night in Delaware under the stars, huddled with his family in Rodney Square.

A former manager for Coca Cola in Guinea, West Africa, Tidiane fled his country five years ago after his political activism led to attacks on his family, including the kidnapping of two of his children.

His achievements underscore the key role played by the collaboration between ELI and the state Department of Labor (DOL) for a small segment of the Institute’s student population. Unlike the vast majority of ELI enrollees, these English learners are immigrants.

They attend English classes through the sponsorship of the Department of Labor’s Division of Employment and Training, which receives funding through the congressionally approved Workforce Investment Act. Since 2000, DOL has sent more than 100 students from over 30 countries to ELI’s evening and regular programs.

“They make giant leaps at ELI,” said Judith Convery, employment service specialist at DOL’s Wilmington office. “They have a 100% success rate. They all become employed. Once they get some wind beneath their wings, they take off.” Tidiane’s wife, Diaraye, also studied English at ELI in order to qualify for a job. She is currently working at St. Helena’s Early Learning Center at the A.I. duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington.

Like Tidiane, many DOL-sponsored students continue their education beyond ELI, Convery said. After two sessions in ELI’s evening program in 2000, Rose Nyirakamana, from Rwanda, took courses for two and a half years to become a certified nurse assistant. A mother of nine, Rose returned to ELI in 2006 for more English classes to prepare for a licensed practical nurse program in the fall. Each of these success stories contains a saga of personal determination and community support.

The beginning was rough, recalled Tidiane, who arrived with a tourist visa, a suitcase and no English. That first week in Delaware he made his way to Sister Madeleine Welch of Delaware Legal Aid Society, who helped him apply for asylum and who introduced him to Catholic Charities. The latter found housing for his family in Claymont.Within a couple of months he’d located the DOL and Convery, who called Kelly Galvin, ELI admissions officer.

“She said ‘Kelly speaks French. It will be easy for you there,’” Tidiane recalled. In March 2002 he began evening classes, traveling by bus from Claymont to Rodney Square in Wilmington. From there he got another bus to Newark. The trip took an hour and fifteen minutes, and he had to leave class early in order to catch the bus back home.

That experience––which taught him the importance of access to transportation–– made a big impression on him. Eventually Tidiane got a car and a driver’s license. The first was a gift. The second came a bit harder.

“It took me six attempts,” he said, explaining how his lack of English made the written driving test so difficult.

Meanwhile, Tidiane continued studying English in an evening class. For one class assignment, he had to call up a business and ask for directions. He chose Grotto Pizza. Not only did he get the directions, he drove to the Fairfax store, asked the manager for a job and began delivering pizzas.

“That was my first job in the US and the longest––three years,” he said.

Increased mobility opened up more job opportunities. Non-English speakers, he explained, usually are restricted to evening or night jobs, where there is no contact with people. But buses stop running at 10:30 pm.With a car and a driver’s license Tidiane was able to take a position at Avon in Newark, working the graveyard shift––11 pm to 7 am.

Eventually, evening work forced Tidiane to enter ELI’s daytime program, where he joined a Level III reading and writing class.

“I learned a lot,” he said. “After taking your classes here, I started to trust myself. I remember reading the Maria Montessori story in class. I thought to myself, ‘Now I am able to read something. Why don’t I try to go to school here?’”

After working a year as a salesman for Coca Cola in Philadelphia in 2004, Tidiane began studying full time for his master’s at Wilmington College. During the daytime, he worked as a bus driver for the Brandywine School District and as a bellhop for Doubletree Hotel. From 5:30 to 1l:00 pm, he went to class.

“I got an A- and a B+ in my first classes. I couldn’t believe it. ELI classes helped me a lot.”

For his first oral presentation, Tidiane outlined a proposal for a 24-hour transportation service in Delaware. He remembered how difficult it was without a car, and he wanted to help other people.

Today his dream has become a reality. He just added a third car to the fleet of his local shuttle business, which operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Much of his business, he said, comes from hotels, for which he provides airport shuttle service, and from state agencies, which contract with him to transport lowincome people to hospitals. He also serves the occasional out-late-clubbing university student who needs a ride back to campus.

“People call me at 2 am. I do it,” he said. “I always think about myself when people call me, when I didn’t have a license.”

The enterprise allows him to utilize all the skills he’s accumulated over the past five years, he said, reflecting back on some of the valuable lessons he’d learned in that period.

A Muslim and a black African, he was helped by many people here, he said, including Christians and whites. “I learned that human kindness knows no boundaries of race or religion,” he said.

You may contact Tidiane 24/7 at  302-229-2156.