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“I decided I was going to pass. I prayed
and I prayed,” says Yolanda Kwarteng, who at 31, had been
trying to get her GED since she was 16 years old and pregnant,
having just dropped out of high school.
Yolanda takes care of three children in her home in Irving, Texas,
including her son, who is on disability for mental retardation.
Difficult
Year
2002 wasn't an easy year for Yolanda. In November,
she was in a major traffic accident in south Texas. The driver
of the other car that hit her went through the windshield. Yolanda
was the first to her side. “I saw the driver fly out of the
car through the windshield, but I did not see her land. She was
lying at the back of my truck. She was twisted and groaning and
bleeding badly from the ear. Her legs, arms, and neck were broken.” Yolanda
recalled gravely.
Yolanda has suffered from nightmares about
the accident. “I still don’t sleep well. I can’t
forget what she looked like.”
Health
Problems
In June, Yolanda had a heart attack and was
hospitalized for a week. “It was stress related,” she
says. Since then, she had a stroke and struggled with high blood
pressure (very high). She just got over having pneumonia.
If that wasn’t bad enough, her mother
had liver failure six months ago and is struggling to recover.
Yolanda has also had four deaths in the family, including a seventeen-year-old
cousin who was killed in a car accident. “(2002) was a really
bad year,” she says, “probably the worse I’ve
ever had.”
A Reason
To Give Thanks
A bright spot has been Yolanda’s efforts
to improve her own situation. She wants to get a grant from North
Lake College to study massage therapy and eventually open her own
business. In order to get the grant, however, she had to pass her
GED test.
“I’ve taken that GED test at least
10 times,” she says, “I would just start marking answers
without reading the question, and I always failed.”
Her Business Access computer helped change
that. “I found a free GED preparation web site called www.4tests.com
where you can take practice tests. You can go back and take it
as many times as you want.”
At first, Yolanda got back into her old bad
habit. “I started off reading the test, but then I just started
clicking on answers, and I’d fail it.”
“One day I said to myself, ‘I’m
gonna read this whole test,’ and I did. Then, I did it again.
I read each question and I passed the sections I couldn’t
before.” After practicing and passing the online test several
times, she went to the GED testing center near her home. On Wednesday,
October 16th, 2002, she took the test and passed it. “When
I got that piece of paper, I was excited. I couldn’t believe
it. I passed (it) on a whole bunch of prayers.”
Building
On Success
They say success breeds success, and that certainly
seems to be part of Yolanda’s hopes. Before being successful
and getting her GED, she was a Business Access success, completing
almost 20 classes online.
Now she’s aiming for a massage therapy
license and a business of her own. “I want to get certified
as a massage therapist and have my own business... Now that I know
I can do this (pass the GED), I can try something else.”
You go Yolanda!
Stephen S. Vanek,
LMSW-ACP, is a writer for Business Access and has a Master's
degree in Social Work.
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