Colombian woman wins inaugural award
When Valentina Ramos immigrated to the United States from Colombia in 2018, she dreamed of going to college and one day helping people with special needs.
She’s now well on her way, with help from a new scholarship honoring an Irish immigrant from a Boston-based nonprofit. Ramos, 24, is the first recipient of the Tom Brunnick Memorial Scholarship from First Literacy.
She’s used the $6,000 award toward her education from Bunker Hill Community College in Charlestown. After the spring term, she’ll pursue a bachelor’s degree in psychology at Lesley University.
“I’m a big, big step closer to where I want to be,” said Ramos.
She hasn’t had to look far for inspiration.
“My older brother, he’s on the spectrum,” Ramos said of Matias, 28, who was diagnosed with autism at age 3. “I saw the beautiful side of having somebody that is so unique and lovely in your life.”
She said that she has also seen the inequalities people with disabilities, particularly immigrants, face in society.
“Coming from a country, from South America, there’s a lot of things there that society [doesn’t] understand,” she said in an interview. “So, my goal in life is to help people [and] to let them know that they are special, and they are capable . . . to do anything they want.”
Tom Brunnick also dreamed big when he arrived in the US in 1921 to escape poverty and civil war in Ireland.
A laborer in shipyards, he “worked tirelessly to pursue his own dreams and was able to raise five children and buy a house in his adopted home city of Boston,” said First Literacy, which provides adult basic education services.
The scholarship is funded by a proud grandson. His granddaughter, Terry Witherell, is executive director of First Literacy.
The organization already awards $1,500 scholarships for graduates of adult basic education or English language learning programs to attend community college.
“We hope this is the first of many named scholarships that will allow First Literacy to offer even more support to adult learners,” Witherell said.
Ramos also received a $1,500 scholarship from First Literacy when she started at Bunker Hill. The Brunnick scholarship came at a critical time in her life, she said.
She has a congenital condition that causes benign bone tumors to develop in her legs. One also recently developed in her brain, she said.