ReWA’s ESL Coordinator, Yuliya Matyushkina, doesn’t usually make house-calls, but last week she did. Wearing a face mask and social distancing, she visited several adult English learners to help them learn to use a laptop for English classes. ReWA’s six classrooms in Seattle, Kent and SeaTac, reach over 200 students each year. English learners come from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iraq, Afghanistan,…
Last month, ReWA’s Kent classroom was host to a dozen students proudly displaying their diploma in Child Care Basics, the first step in a career in early childhood education. Florence held her diploma and smiled, proudly. “I have 40 years of experience teaching, but without credentials it was difficult to get a job.” ReWA program coordinator, Sara Cooley said, “Our…
Volunteer ESL teacher and a rare bloom When Belkis arrived at her Tuesday night ReWA ESL class, she collapsed into a chair with a sigh. Sitting around the U-shaped table with other classmates, her hair dripped with rain and her face was weary from a long day as a commercial painter — one of her three jobs. But her eyes…
Only a few hours before their flight was scheduled for take-off, six-year-old Halima came down with food poisoning. Her mother Hawa felt hot tears spring to her eyes, the strain of the moment almost too much to bear. Hawa had spent the last 20 years in Ethiopia, behind the walls of a refugee camp. Now she was making this journey…