New Program Sends Latinas to College for Job Education

Yolanda Flores is a struggling single mother of three who speaks little English and has never had a steady job.

Because she lacked an education and English language skills and became a mother as a teen, it was difficult to find quality work, Flores said. As a result, the San Fernando resident settled for a variety of low-paying jobs to help support her children, ages 12, 10 and 8.

Attending college en route to a career was something the 31-year-old Mexican native never fathomed.

“I couldn’t afford it and I certainly didn’t have the time,” Flores said in Spanish.

Now, Flores and 28 other women with similar stories are getting a free community college education designed to help them learn English and become qualified as licensed child-care providers or teachers’ aides. They are enrolled in a new program, believed to be the first of its kind in Los Angeles County to target low-income women who are not on welfare.

The program is run jointly by Pacoima Workforce Development Initiative, a privately funded group that matches low-income northeast Valley residents with jobs, and the Child Care Resource Center in Van Nuys, which refers parents to licensed providers and dispenses subsidies to eligible families. All of the participants are Latinas from the northeast Valley, an area with high unemployment and a substantial population at or below the poverty level.

The organizations pay for the women’s fees at Mission College in Sylmar, books, transportation and child care. Mentors and academic counselors also are available.

The program’s annual cost of about $220,000 is funded by grants from private foundations, said Mario Matute, director of the Pacoima initiative.

“The idea is that they have no excuse to drop out,” Matute said. “We didn’t want them to have any reason to quit.”

Participants attend classes for two years and, upon completion of either an associate of arts degree or a certificate in child development, are placed in full-time jobs.

The women all earned passing grades in their first semester.

“It’s a fabulous program and they’re all doing exceedingly well,” said Eloise Cantrell, college dean of academic affairs.

In addition to courses related to child care--such as infant nutrition, CPR and child and adolescent psychology--the women take English as a second language, geography and government and learn how to open a bank account.

“It has been so good for my self-esteem,” said Veronica Berrios, 32, a native of El Salvador who lives in North Hills with her husband and four children. “I used to clean houses and I thought that was all I’d ever do in this country.”

Berrios learned of the program through the Pacoima Workforce Development Initiative, which was created nearly three years ago. Matute runs it out of a modest Pacoima office with recruiting stations at five northeast Valley schools.

The initiative is financed through a private grant from Los Angeles Urban Funders. It has placed more than 200 area residents in jobs, with a 98% retention rate, Matute said.

Last year, the Pacoima group received an award of excellence from the California Assn. for Local Economic Development.

Despite the recognition, Matute said, the initiative failed to help a group that yearned to find work: mothers who don’t speak English and have no job skills or employment history.

Most of the women are dealing with many obstacles, including family problems, minimal education and financial struggles, Matute said. Besides attending college full time, many of them work. They also must find time to study unfamiliar subjects in a foreign language and care for their own families.

“It’s unbelievable what they’re doing,” Matute said. “It’s a tremendous challenge.”

Celia Gutierrez, a 56-year-old Pacoima resident who came from Mexico 27 years ago, said she often recruits her teenage son to help translate her homework assignments from English to Spanish.

“Learning a new language at my age isn’t easy,” she said.

Sara Sanchez of Pacoima, who has five girls--ages 10, 8, 5 and 4-year-old twins--said her husband is around only on some weekends because he works at a construction site in San Diego.

For years, Sanchez, 37, worked sporadically at garment factories, where the grueling schedule wore her down, she said. She enrolled in the child-care program after hearing about it at Pacoima Elementary School, which her daughters attend.

“It has already helped me so much with my own kids,” she said. “I used to go nuts; I had little patience with them. Now, I communicate better with my girls and when they make me mad, I count to 10 and cool off like we learned in class.”

Berrios said she also has learned important lessons about simple things she thought she knew, such as what to feed her kids.

“I used to give them lots of soda and cereals with sugar,” she said. “Now, I give them fruits and vegetables. Every day I learn something different.”

Flores said her children can look up to her now because she’s practicing what she has preached for so long.

“I always tell my kids to stay in school and now I’m leading by example,” she said. “I’m showing them I can do something with my life. Who would have thought?”