Director Polly Smith says people from ages 19 to 70 seek services from the Anchorage Literacy Project. Volunteers go through 12 to 15 hours of tutor training before being matched with people learning to speak, read, and write English. Last year, Smith says, volunteers tutored people who spoke many different languages. In one training workshop, twenty-two tutors were matched to students representing eleven languages. Spanish, Russian, Albanian . . .
Language is a way in, a corridor with doors, each opening into a new world.
Ask Mariana Apetroaei, who emigrated two years ago. She was a practicing dentist in Romania and wants to resume her profession here. After studying English at the Anchorage Literacy Project, she opened her own home health care business. Now Apetroaei serves on the Literacy Project's board, and she's a sought-after speaker, who appears before hundreds of people on behalf of The United Way.