|
||
The ACCESS Project
Home
About Us
2001 Year End Report
2003 Year End Report
Supporting ACCESS
In The News
Select Director's Publications
Contact Us
Exhibit and Invited Lectures
Gallery Guide
Exhibit Stories
Photo Exhibit News
Exhibit Venues
Contact Information
Vivyan Adair
|
Missing Story of OurselvesHeather AdairI was brought into the world destined for poverty. Poor, without support from my father and without hope, my mother applied for welfare when I was born prematurely. For the first two years of my life we lived on the meager funds the angry taxpayers sacrificed to us while my mother struggled to persevere. Despite what little we had, my mother spent all of her energy fighting to keep me as safe and without need as possible. As soon as I was well enough to go into day-care, my mother immediately looked for work. She found out early on, however, that there were few jobs available to single parents who held no post-secondary educations. Realizing that a minimum wage job would not support us and resolving that she needed stability for her family, my mother enrolled in college as a welfare mom, when I was two years of age. This is where my life began…and my mother's life too. It is safe to say that without an education, neither of us would exist as we do today. When she first attended college, my mother was discouraged by harsh words concerning her status as a poor single mother. Soon though, she was able to grasp her work through education. She reveled in the complexities of science, philosophy, literature and art. When participating in the classroom, she saw herself as a person capable of contributing to the society around her in innumerable ways. Education gave her a way out. My mother carried home a passion for education that could not help but make an irrevocable impression on my young mind. I can remember at the age of eight having the most detailed discussions with my mother about everything from the cosmos to concepts of truth and reality. In me she fostered a reverence for knowledge and education that I clung to in the wake of material want. My mother's determination gave me hope for our future and a belief that we were worth more than what society credited us. Every night I would go to sleep knowing that she was awake, preparing for her classes and working to pull us out of the poverty we had both been born into. What began as an attempt to improve our lives turned out to be a transformation in every way imaginable. Today I am a high school senior who works in our community to pay back those who helped us in our time of need. Recently, I received a Rotary International Exchange scholarship and was accepted to Smith College, one of the finest liberal arts colleges in the nation. My mother's short stint on the welfare rolls virtually eliminated any possibility of my ever going though the system of aid that was at once so instrumental and yet so damaging to our lives. Unlike so many people born in poverty, I have been given a renewed vision of life. In addition to the obvious economic, cultural and social benefits of our transformation, I have gained an intense respect for education, civic responsibly and moral engagement that will aid, shape and inspire me throughout my life. |
Photo Exhibit |
| Copyright © 2008 The Trustees of Hamilton College. All rights reserved. top of page | printable page | text: T T T | ||
