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4/22/10 9:33 PMMySouthEnd.com - Local news and entertainment for Boston's Historic South End
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Program director Frances Laroche teaches a beginner
English class about the seal of Massachusetts at
Educational Development Group on Mass. Ave. She
uses worksheets, tapes, videos, field trips, interactive
classes and more to help her students learn English.
(Source:Kate Vander Wiede)
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New immigrants learn English, find hope
thanks to Educational Development Group
by Kate Vander Wiede
MySouthEnd.com Contributor
Wednesday Apr 21, 2010
South End nonprofit
offers new immigrants
a better chance at
success in America
Moving to a new city is
full of tasks like finding a
job, buying an
apartment, meeting
people, and acclimating
to a new environment. It
can be a draining
process. For immigrants
who don’t know the
language, and can’t
understand or be
understood, the situation
moves far past difficult.
"When I came here, I
[had] never seen
anything in English," said
27-year-old Bouloute
Evens, in improving
English.
Having only been in the country for two months, Evens came to America
from Haiti just before the January earthquake hit. Now living with his new
wife and mother-in-law, Evens knew he needed to learn English to move
his life forward. He turned to the South End’s Educational Development
Group (EDG) for help.
BUZZ UP!

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4/22/10 9:33 PMMySouthEnd.com - Local news and entertainment for Boston's Historic South End
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EDG, in existence since 1991, started offering new immigrants intensive
beginner and intermediate English classes in 2005.
English for New Bostonians (ENB), a partnership initiated by the office of
the mayor in 2001, funds the EDG program. According to ENB, 3,500
people are currently waitlisted for ESL classes and immigrants, who work
in all of Massachusetts’ major industries, make up 17 percent of the
state’s workforce.
Some of these immigrants choose to come to America as young adults or
older for more opportunities, others flee war-torn homelands, and still
more join family members that have already come to America.
EDG’s program director Frances Laroche, herself an immigrant from Haiti,
teaches these individuals English so that they are able to succeed and
thrive in a new country.
"We help them learn English, understand the country and have good
information - there is a lack of information, misinformation and
disinformation out there," she said, sitting at a table that the next day
the intermediate class would be learning English from.
From the garden level of a small building on Mass. Ave., students take
part in the 40-hours-a-week beginner class or 20-hour-a-week
intermediate version. EDG provides computers that students can use to
find jobs and connect with families back home. Students are also coached
on how to act in job interviews, and taught how to write their résumés.
Laroche tries to help give new immigrants a safe place to learn while they
settle into the realities of a new life.
"[Many immigrants] think the opportunities here are almost
instantaneous, like breathing the air. Once they realize they cannot
understand or be understood, for some people that is really hard. They
feel like less of a person," she said.
Laroche says many Americans think it is simple to learn English and that
immigrants aren’t trying hard to do so. She also noted that people often
assume citizens of other countries hop at the chance to come to America
just to gain material wealth.
She drew an analogy to explain why this perception isn’t true.

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"You could dream that the Queen of England was going to open her
palace and you could say, ’Oh, I’d love to live there, I’d have so many
advantages,’ but leaving your family, leaving what you know, people are
not willing to do that," she said.
"It takes something very big for people to move to another country. It
takes not being able to survive," she continued.
This idea of survival is what brought 20-year-old Lubin Simeon Ferrier to
America after the January earthquake in Haiti destroyed his family’s
home.
"We didn’t have anywhere to sleep, so we slept outside. But I couldn’t
continue to sleep outside for all my life. I had an opportunity to come
here, so I come," he said.
With an uncle in America who sponsored his bid for a green card back in
2002, Ferrier has some support here, but the friends he met during
English classes are the only friends he has in the city, a fact for many of
EDG’s students.
As he moves forward to finish the last five weeks of his intermediate
English classes, Ferrier looks ahead to finishing school and going to
college for engineering. He still talks to his family in Haiti - his mother,
two brothers and three sisters - by telephone and internet and said that
while the six are doing well, they are all still living outdoors. He hopes his
future success will mean good things for his family.
But while life in their home countries is still a struggle, the students are
all making the best of their new life in America.
Evens is proud of his English learning, which has gone from Level 1 to
Level 7 out of ten levels on the standardized test EDG uses to record
progress. He is noticeably excited to continue his studies in science
accounting, a subject he already received a bachelor’s degree in while in
Haiti.
Smiling and nodding when asked how he felt about living in America,
Ferrier was to the point.
"I’m happy," he said. "Really happy,"