National Adult Literacy Database

March 25, 2013

This week, we have a story written by Kieren Lopez, from Black River, New Brunswick. Kieren is one of the winners of the Writing Contest 2012 – How is Continuous Learning Making a Difference in Your Life?, hosted by the Literacy Coalition of New Brunswick (LCNB). He is enrolled in literacy classes with the Black River Adult Learning Program.

Story

by Kieren Lopez

My name is Kieren Lopez and I am 23 years old. So far I have lived a pretty hard life. Right now I am in jail and I have decided that, well, it is time for me to grow up and stop making life threatening decisions that can take my life and freedom away. I have already lost 7 years of my life give or take, by going in and out of jail. I only ever did a few months of grade 9 twice then dropped out to work, party, and live a life of crime.

I was born in the Dominican Republique in 1989. I lived there until I was almost 5 years old. For my first few years I lived with my grand-father because my father went to Canada to go to college and become a chef. He wanted to bring me to Canada with him so I wouldn’t grow up in a life of bad violence and poverty. When I was almost 5 years old he had succeeded half of his goal. He had enough money for me to come up, and was in college taking English and some other courses to further his goal of becoming a chef. He was working part time as a chef at a restaurant until they closed down and he was forced to go look for work somewhere else. Luckily for him, he had money from his loan put away, so he opened up a pawn shop and was doing that for a while.

We were living in Moncton when I was around 11 or 12 years old and when my dad was at work I was left alone at home. That’s when I started experimenting with beer and smoking some marijuana. Then when I turned 13, I went and lived on my own; just because I was always alone anyways. I did not think it would be hard so I went to school and worked until I made it to grade 9. My first year of high school I did not want to learn and did not want a normal career, so I quite school, and my job, and started doing crime and doing and selling drugs. That’s when jail started too happen. When I was 16, I went to jail for the first time, and now here I am, 7 years later.

A few months ago I was introduced to my girlfriend. She is in college, she works, and she does well for herself. She made me want to go to college and get a career and not continue my life of dumb crime. I have tried to find a career that will have good pay. I have decided to become an electrician, everybody needs electricity! So I tried to get all the information about what I need to do to be an electrician. I found out I needed to get my GED and I got into this adult learners program that is helping to pave my way into a normal life, with a good career. Without this program I would not have been rehabilitated into society, I would not have a good future ahead of me, and I would have probably lost my girlfriends interest in me. She sees that thanks to this program, I really want to better myself, for me and for her. It doesn’t matter how rough you had it, there is always hope for somebody that wants to make a difference in themselves. Thanks to this program I can start a new chapter in my life, as a clean, educated man, who wants to give back to his community and hopefully give back to his country of origin as well.

[This story was taken with permission, from the Literacy Coalition of New Brunswick (LCNB) website, under Learners’ Stories.