by Mike Meno - Gazette.net
A partnership between a 19-year-old immigrant from Eritrea and an
employee at the Takoma Park Maryland Library could soon provide people
learning English with a tool to improve their reading, writing and
conversation.
Abreham Tsefaye moved to Montgomery County two years ago from the
African nation Eritrea, where he had taken English classes since he was
7 years old, and was able to speak English better than his parents and
four siblings, he said.
When he enrolled at Montgomery Blair High School, where he is now a
senior, Tsefaye was told that as part of the state’s student service
learning program, he had to complete 40 hours of nonprofit community
service work to graduate. But in order to support his family, Tsefaye
had committed his weekends to working part-time, and he didn’t know how
he’d find time to complete the graduation requirement.
Phil Shapiro, a public services librarian and self-proclaimed ‘‘public
geek” at the Takoma Park Maryland Library, provided the answer.
Shapiro had met Tsefaye’s younger brother, Henos Tsefaye, an
eighth-grader, at the library and one night went to the family’s home
in Takoma Park to install a donated iMac computer. When he met Abreham
Tsefaye and heard about his dilemma, Shapiro decided to help.
‘‘Abreham had this need,” Shapiro said. ‘‘I didn’t want to just have him do something where he’s not going to learn.”
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