CU Nursing - Spring/Summer 2020 - 28

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ALUMNI

It was rough. But
I learned a lot from
what happened to me.
In the end, my story is
really a happy story.
- Yolande Ngounou

Never Give Up
By Dana Brandorff

t 13, I dropped out of school to take care of my
siblings because my mother was extremely ill
and my father left us," said Yolande Ngounou,
BSN '19. A native of Cameroon (a Central
African country), Ngounou recalled her childhood. "It
was my job to help my family. I loved school so much,
but I had to give it up."
At the time, her mother was pregnant and suffering
from pre-eclampsia. She fell into a coma but survived
after a C-section and the birth of a son.
After her mother recovered, she told Ngounou how
much she regretted her daughter's sacrifice.
"I wanted to go back to school, but that wasn't possible.
So, I homeschooled and got my high school diploma,"
said Ngounou. After obtaining her diploma, friends
suggested a program called the Diversity Immigrant
Visa program (also known as the visa lottery) where
she could get to the U.S. and "have a better life."

THE AMERICAN DREAM - MORE NIGHTMARE THAN DREAM
Her first stop was Philadelphia where she was matched to a fellow
Cameroonian and his wife. The pair took advantage of her; they took
her passport and identification and kept her virtually enslaved cooking,
cleaning and taking care of their children while they went to school.

The DV program provides up to 50,000 immigrant
visas available annually, drawn from random selection among all entries to individuals who are from
countries with low rates of immigration to America.
Distributed among six geographic regions, no single
country can receive more than 7% of the available
DVs in any one year.

Sequestered in the house for a year, Ngounou had little contact with
outsiders. Each time the U.S. government sent her green card and permanent visa (which would allow her to go to school) to the home, her
host returned them. One day, her host family allowed her to take the
children to the park, where she met a woman who spoke French. Ngounou
explained her situation. Together, they went to immigration with her
story. An officer contacted her host, who subsequently threw her out.

Because Ngounou only spoke French (the native language of Cameroon) and had no money, she was reticent
to apply. Without her knowledge, a family friend submitted her name. Surprisingly, she won a spot. "My family
had to convince me to go. They had a lot of confidence
in me," said Ngounou. "I was scared. Every time I raised
a concern they would say, 'You will learn. You can do it.'"

Homeless with nowhere to go, she lived on the streets.

CU College of Nursing | Spring/Summer 2020

THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS
While homeless, "A lady came up to me. She was from Cameroon as
well. She offered to take me home with her where I called my mother. I
begged her to come home." Ngounou's mother encouraged her to keep
fighting as they barely had food to eat. She and her Good Samaritan

CU Nursing - Spring/Summer 2020

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