Photo Caption: Mamadou D. Graduates from NYU Tandon

American Dream Program (ADP) scholar, Mamadou, graduated from NYU Tandon School of Engineering this month. Mamadou not only is the first in his family to attend college, but he already has an offer to work as an Assistant Engineer at Turner Construction, where he’s interned for the past two summers. Mamadou’s journey to achieve this pinnacle of success has been a long one, but HSVS was there every step of the way. At age 15, Mamadou’s aunt and guardian fell victim to a green card scam. After a trip to visit family in Senegal, Mamadou’s aunt was denied re-entry to the U.S. Mamadou was alone with no money, no food, no family and no shelter. Mamadou’s soccer coach connected him to the agency and moved to our Jamaica Hills Group Home in Queens.

“HSVS always pushed me to succeed in school. HSVS was there as I polished my English, studied for the SATs, applied to good colleges and faced all the victories and challenges of my college education,” said Mamadou. “The HSVS team wanted me to be happy. They did everything they could so that I didn’t have to worry about rent, cooking or any other potential distractions from studying. That being said, HSVS was more like a family to me,” the recent grad shared. Mamadou is one of 35 intelligent, hard-working scholars, who never thought they’d have the opportunity to attend college and have achieved their American Dream.