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Department of Human Development and Family Studies
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An alumna of the Department of Human Development and Family Studies finds light through darkness.
Each morning when I dropped my daughter off at the Penn State Child Care Center at Hort Woods, Grace Hakizimana ’12 HDFS was there to greet us. The preschool teacher smiled at my baby girl—then 18 months old—as we came through the door. She spoke to her softly. She helped her find her favorite stuffed squirrel. She treated her as if she were her own. On the outside, Grace radiated warmth. But on the inside, there was darkness. When Grace was just 16 years old, her life in her home country of Rwanda was turned upside down. All around her people were murdered in a genocide that would last 100 days and leave 800,000 people dead. Nine years later, after witnessing unspeakable acts and fearing daily for her life, she was admitted to the United States as a refugee. Alone in a country in which she did not speak or understand the language, she eventually made her way to State College, where former friends of her parents were living. With Penn State at hand, she decided to pursue her dream of attending college.
by Sara LaJeunesse
She said that as a young girl in high school, she wanted to be an accountant like her father, so she majored in economics. Her plans changed. “Coming from a country where there are so many problems I felt I wanted to do something for other people as much as I had other people helping me in my life,” Grace told me. She decided, instead, to follow in her aunt’s footsteps and become a nurse. But that goal was put on hold when Yannick was born. Now a single mother who was working full time in a day care center and volunteering for Global Connections—an organization that creates opportunities for international students and recent immigrants—she began to spend whatever time she could spare learning to read, write, and speak English. When Yannick was two years old, Grace sought assistance from advisers in the College of Health and Human Development in enrolling in Penn State’s School of Nursing, but she quickly learned that to earn a degree in nursing she would have to participate in daily clinical experiences in Altoona or Hershey.
I decided to write a profile about this alumna of the Department of Human Development and Family Studies who has overcome so much in her life, so I asked her to meet me in the children’s room at Schlow Library to learn more about her story. Her son Yannick, 7 years old, sat with us at a table, busy making a birthday card for a friend. My toddler and 3-year-old daughter played nearby.
“I couldn’t do that because I had no one to watch Yannick,” she said. “My adviser told me I could help somebody in different ways, and she talked to me about a degree in human development and family studies. I learned I could do so much with human development.”
I asked Grace about her experience in Rwanda, but the horrors she had witnessed were unspeakable. Even the little she did tell me caused my eyes to well up with tears.
Grace spoke in detail about how much she appreciated the assistance of her advisers, especially Diane Leos, Vanessa Wade, Pam Evock, and Ro Nwranski.
18 | Health and Human Development