Editor’s note: Your Dream is Our Dream: Celebrating Student Success brings you conversations with students about their dreams and the educators who ignite and inspire them. In a new series from School News Network, students from all levels of education share in their own words and pictures how learning connects them to achieving their goals and exploring their ambitions. An initiative of Kent ISD, Your Dream is Our Dream showcases student success and how teaching and learning help make dreams come true.
Godwin Heights — After moving from Honduras to the United States in 2019, eighth-grader Lohany Castron Gavarrete has a dream of providing help to those in need.
What is your dream? “I would like to be a doctor.”
Why is this your dream? It was about seven years ago and yet Lohany can tell you, in detail, the fear she felt about losing her mother.
At the time, the family lived in Honduras; Lohany’s mother had just had a child when she became ill. She needed an operation, but it was something the family could not easily afford.
“My sisters and I thought that we were going to lose her, which made us really upset because we were little,” Lohany said.
As the family struggled to get the money needed for the operation, “I remember my parents asking the doctor to help her, but the doctor said he needed to have his money,” she said.
Because of that experience, Lohany decided she wanted to become a doctor in order to help those facing difficult situations like her family did.
How are school and your teachers helping you achieve your dream? Lohany said she is grateful that, through Michigan’s Schools of Choice program, she is able to be a part of the Godwin Heights family. At Godwin, she has found a place where she feels accepted and is comfortable to express herself.
“I think the school is helping me achieve my dream by helping me with my English and allowing me to explore careers and pursue my dream.”
Her singular focus has been to become a doctor; she hopes to be able to help people here as well as those in Honduras.
“I want to make sure that no one has to go through what I felt and what I went through.”
