Everett Community College has taken another step forward by helping undocumented students or DREAMers here on campus. Abraham Rodriguez currently works at the Diversity and Equity Center as a Program Manager, he came up with the proposal to start the DREAMers Success Program.

The program was approved by Winter Quarter and made EvCC the first college in Washington State to help undocumented students with their academic success by implementing a program such as this one. This allowed to hire two DREAMers Success Navigators. Sergio Jose Barrera and Carlos Chavez were the ones who got hired to take on the project themselves, both of them are current students at EvCC and DREAMers. According to Barrera, “this program provides the tools to undocumented students so they can enroll and graduate from EvCC.”

Currently in this program there are 50 WASFA (Washington Application for State Financial Aid) students, who are the ones that benefit from this program. Around 20 to 30 of them attend the bi-weekly meetings for around two hours. The meetings consist of bringing in members from outside the campus who work for undocumented students, they usually teach the DREAMers how to write essays, transfer to a four year university and they do other workshops which will help them to grow here on campus and outside of it once they graduate.

One of those DREAMers is Sergio H. Huacuja, this is his first quarter here at EvCC. Huacuja was introduced to the project by Barrera, at first he wasn’t sure what the project was about. “I only knew it was to help DREAMers.” So far Huacuja has attended every meeting, the most helpful thing he has learned is to fill out the financial aid application WASFA. In the long run Huacuja plans to go get enough knowledge so he can help incoming undocumented students and also help the program expand all over Washington State.

On May 7th, the DREAMers had one of their sessions this time they focused on a discussion called Identity Caucus. Sonia Lopez-Nava stated how her struggles have made her appreciate everything she has. “Now I really appreciate the programs I have at school, something that other schools might not have, it motivates you and you start to value them. It makes you want to share them. This program that helps undocumented students has really made a difference” said Lopez-Nava.

Barrera and Chavez want to accomplish many goals, yet their biggest one is to expand this program to the high schools around the area, so other undocumented students know that they have the opportunity to attend college, as well to know more about their resources at an early age.

EvCC’s faculty and staff are supporting this project, since they are getting more educated by the own DREAMers. This team is called the DREAMers Taskforce, Maria Peña and Katie Jensen are in charge of this force. Linda Summers, Ambar Martinez and Anisha Khatri are subcommittee leaders, they plan the workshop and then present to the faculty and staff here on campus, the DREAMers share their story and they discuss the different types of help the government is giving them to continue their education. Now that many of the people on campus know about the hardships of an undocumented students they have become allies to the cause. “I want to thank all faculty and staff who approved the project, and to everyone who supports it” said Huacuja.