Tuesday night, Fatma couldn’t stop smiling as her oldest daughter, Marwa, graduated from the Dayton Early College Academy. When she enters Ohio State University in the fall, she will be the first woman in Fatma’s extended family to attend college.
“Her little sister and all of her cousins in Algeria — they want to be like her,” Fatma said. “It’s giving them someone to look up to.”
Not only did Marwa graduate — she gave the welcoming address for the 40-member class of 2012, in the same Building 12 at Sinclair Community College where she became an American citizen three years earlier. “It’s a very meaningful coincidence, because this is where I began my new life,” Marwa said. “I love this country so much. This country made me who I am today.”
She earned a 3.9 grade point average and plans to double major in economics and political science.
“She’s the American dream,” said DECA principal Judy Hennessey. “It’s why so many Americans came here, leaving what was familiar and comfortable because they wanted something more for their children. Her mom wanted her to have a good education. Marwa is ambitious and hard-working. She asks for help when needed, yet relies on her own intellect and problem-solving abilities. She’s like an old soul in that young body of hers.”
While Marwa’s story is more international than that of her classmates, it’s similar in many ways; the majority of DECA graduates are the first in their families to attend college. It was the fifth commencement for the charter school, sponsored by Dayton Public Schools and operated on the University of Dayton campus. The class of 2012 continues DECA’s impressive record: Every student since the first graduating class in 2007 has enrolled in college.
It’s what Marwa’s parents fantasized about when they emigrated to America in 1998, when Marwa was only 4 years old. “I was looking for a better life for my kids,” Fatma said.
Marwa, the second oldest of four, added “She loves my father and her kids, but regrets not being able to finish school.”
Marwa’s father, Hamed Berri, worked long days to provide for his wife and children. Initially, the family lived in Long Island, where Hamed worked as a custodian and floor manager in the Twin Towers. Luckily, the family moved to Dayton shortly before 9/11.
“My dad is a huge driving force behind our success,” Marwa said. “He works 14-hour days as an auto mechanic, six days a week, because he wants us all to be educated.”
Older family member also are celebrating the generational shift. Marwa’s maternal grandparents flew in from Algeria to attend the graduation ceremony. She noted that her grandfather, Abdelkadar Belkebir, grew up in an entirely different era, yet has grown into one of her biggest cheerleaders: “He’s always telling people that ‘Marwa did this, Marwa did that.’ ”
Marwa credits the DECA faculty and her fellow students with helping create a supportive environment where diversity is more than a slogan, and where students speak openly about their respective cultures: “Being asked to give the welcoming speech at commencement is a huge honor,” she said, “and it says a lot about DECA that it’s being given to a Muslim woman.”
She closed her address Tuesday evening with a Dr. Seuss poem: “You have brains in your head/You have feet in your shoes/You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own/And you know what you know/You are the guy who’ll decide where to go.”
It was, perhaps, directed to the youngest member of her family in the audience: her 7-year-old sister, Bouchra, a student at Franklin Montessori School, who sat in rapt attention throughout the ceremony, clutching a bouquet of flowers.
Like her big sister, Bouchra hopes to attend DECA and go to college one day.
“I want to be a doctor.”
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2209 or mmccarty@Dayton
DailyNews.com.
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