by George Lewinnek ·
Friday, April 24, 2026
From left: Isabel Goes of IINE, Adama Abdalah, Beheshta A, Stanley Sejours Constant, and Lena Aloise, the organizer of Bridges. (Photo by George Lewinnek)
Lena Aloise, a Harvard native and junior at Groton Academy, presented an event at Fivesparks on April 9. In a project called Bridges, three immigrant youths each read personal essays on a childhood incident that had helped to shape them.
As a student at the Groton School, and with the encouragement of her Groton newspaper advisor, Sean Kerrigan, Aloise started the Bridges writing project after she had joined a program in Lowell to teach English to speakers of other languages (ESOL). The ESOL program was managed by the International Institute of New Eng-
land (IINE). Aloise recognized the value that a writing workshop could have, both for the writers and for those who read or heard the essays afterwards.
With the help of Isabel Goes, IINE youth services manager, and with a grant from the Groton School Dwight Internship Fund, Aloise held a two-week workshop in August 2025. The seven participants wrote personal essays. Sixteen volunteers coached them on their writing and nine Groton students reviewed their work. The result was a 35-page booklet containing eight essays.
Three of the workshop participants were willing and able to read their work at the Fivesparks event.
Stanley Sejour Constant, 25 years old, originally from Leogane, Haiti, read his story about the time when he was 14. His mother wanted him to go to Port-au- Prince, a city 19 miles away and more than 12 times as large as Leogane. She wanted him to go for better schools and for a better start on life. Both he and his mother were torn by the choice that they faced, between their closeness as a family and the demands of the future, when Constant would benefit from a better education.
He concluded his story with this: “Those wrinkles on [your mother’s] face are the scars of battles you will never understand. I love you, Mom.”
Adama Abdala, 18 years old, originally from the Central African Republic (bordered by Cameroon, Sudan, Chad, and the two Congo republics), read her story about a time when she was 7. She and a friend had bounced on a bed, stopping only when they broke a mirror. They fled outside. When her mother returned and found the broken mirror, she was angry. The girls lied about their involvement. Abdala thought that she had deceived her mother until a few days later, when her mother had a stern conversation with her about why lying is wrong. This conversation, it is clear from the essay, made a lasting impression on Abdala.
Beheshta A, 17 years old, originally from Herat, Afghanistan, wrote about her family’s experience with, in her words, “very aggressive and mean Taliban.” They fled, first to Qatar, and then to the United States. She feared that her Muslim faith and her lack of English would keep her from connecting with people, but “I was soon proven wrong.” She said she hopes to study law and to become an advocate for human rights.
The audience saw beyond the lack of public speaking experience that these young people have. They responded to each speaker with supportive and enthusiastic applause.
In the audience was Joan Accorsi, retired Hildreth Elementary School teacher, who had taught Aloise when Aloise was in fourth grade. Accorsi remembers her asking, “Could we have a school newspaper?” With Aloise’s efforts, one was started. Accorsi remembers the fourth-grader then was “already a fantastic thinker and writer.”
Isabel Goes, the IINE youth services manager, explained during after-the-event refreshments that her father’s generation moved here in the 1970s from the Portuguese island of Madeira. With the help of IINE, they managed the transition. Now both her father’s generation and Goes’ generation are productive members of society, working in finance, technology, and other careers.
Goes said that the immigrant youths whom she serves are hard workers, seeking to further their own education, often while being the family’s bread winners and interpreters.
Alexandra Drolette from IINE also participated in the event. She is the senior director of principal and major gifts, for the Institute depends on donations. She explained that IINE had its start in 1910, founded by women to serve immigrants.
The IINE website adds that it started within the YWCA. Its services now include relief, education, skills training, and legal services. Its first independent site was in Lowell in 1918, its second in Boston in 1924, and its third in Manchester, New Hampshire, in 1987. It has served successive waves of immigrants. In the early 20th century immigrants were from Greece, Italy, and Syria. In the 1970s they were from Cambodia. Recently they have been from current hot-spots, including Ukraine.
At the end of the evening, Constant stood just outside the front door of Fivesparks, at the top of the steps. He is a student at Middlesex Community College and wants to be a civil engineer. He examined the construction of the new railings along the steps of Fivesparks, with cables made rigid by tension. His gaze swept over the buildings around the Common. He said, “This is beautiful. Are there any farms here?”