CAMDEN — Romelia (Romy) Corvacho was sitting in a computer class at college one morning in 1992, in Miraflores, a suburb of Lima, Peru. Miraflores means flowers’ view, or watching flowers, but that day, events unfolded that were so tragic the trajectory of her life changed forever. She had been with her classmates, learning about software and preparing for a professional career. Working in an office was something she always wanted to do, and at age 16, she had the endorsement of her parents, who were helping with the private school payments so she could move forward.

Corvacho excused herself to walk across the school courtyard to the restroom. It was then she felt the ground move, with ear-shattering noise. An earthquake, she thought, a common enough occurence in Lima.

She was wrong. It was the July 16 Tarata Street bomb blast that destroyed parts of the business district, killing 25 and wounding 200. The bombs had been set in two vehicles on the street by Shining Path terrorists, who had brutalized the country and its citizens since the 1980s.

Corvacho survived, and walked away from Colegio San Ignacia de Loyola, never to return.

Her father, a firefighter, then made a decision. No more car bombs and massacres, no more terrorism.

“He said, ‘OK, this is it. We can’t stay here,’” she recollected, 23 years later, sitting at a conference table at the Knox Mill in Camden, while snow continued to fall outside.

The family — Romy, her mother, little sister and father — uprooted from their home for the U.S., to Queens, where Romy’s uncle had emigrated to in the 1970s.

“My father sold everything, and used all of his savings, $15,000, so that we could leave,” she said. Her Aunt Mercedes, and uncles Teo and Nemeceo lent them another $30,000.

They attempted to get a visa from the U.S. embassy in Lima, but that failed. So, Romy’s father paid a human smuggler $45,000 to arrange for the four of them to move across five countries, north to the U.S. border. 

With no passports — remember, she said, raising a well manicured finger to emphasize her point of how much life has changed, “this was 1992, pre-9/11” — and in small planes, they flew from Lima to Panama, to Costa Rica, and from Costa Rica to Guatemala. 

In Panama, the smuggler had abruptly abandoned the family.

“OK, let’s go home,” her father said.

“Papa, how are we going to go home,” she asked.

After consulting with their family back in Lima, who urged them to push forward, it was Romy’s mother who made the decision to “go ahead.” They found different smugglers, who helped move them north.

They took buses through Mexico, sleeping in the woods. When they got to Tiajuana, they grouped together with three other families and hired a teenager — “he was a nice guy, 15 or 16 years old,” she said, to move them across the border. It would cost them $500.

They packed into a windowless van with 25 Mexicans, and drove for two hours towards the border.

“We were scared, and a woman began to pray,” said Corvacho. “There was gunshot, but we kept going.”

They arrived in Los Angeles, where the driver ordered, “OK, everybody out.”

“We stood there for a moment looking at each other, and then everybody started walking away,” she said. “We went to find a phone. I called my uncle. He thought we were dead. They had lit candles for us.”

The next thing they knew, her uncle had flown west from New York, bringing clothes to the family.

Fast forward a decade, and her family had settled into the life of New York immigrants. They did not have residency, but they worked.

Romy was the first in the family to land a job, and then her mother. They worked in factories. Romy was a cleaning lady. Her father went to work in construction, and then as a parking assistant. Most of all, they were safe.

Still, there burned in her the desire to advance, and that dream of working in an office, it never died. 

“Because I had a dream I wanted to be successful,” she said. “My parents gave me a good education.”

She went to Columbia University and asked administrators there if she could attend classes there and learn English. She was turned down. She then pleaded with a professor at LaGuardia Community College if she could audit his class, telling him, “I’ll sit in the back.”

He agreed, and she embarked on a weekly three-hour English intensive. Her English improved and she landed a job as a waitress at Burger Heaven, at 57th and Lexington.

“I learned the menu by heart, and I could serve people,” she said. “But my dream was to work in an office. Nobody would hire me. I didn’t know how to present.”

One day, she was reading the city’s leading Spanish language newspaper, El Diario, and spotted an ad for Strive. Strive is a nonprofit with offices now in 16 U.S. cities, most recently New Orleans and Detroit, as well as in Israel. It was founded in 1984 by two New York City bankers, Sam Hartwell and Tom Rodman, who, according to the organization, “were troubled by the chronic unemployment problem facing the residents of East Harlem and other American inner-cities in the 1980s.”

The motto of Strive is: “Prepared to work, determined to succeed.”

They teamed up with Rob Carmona, an East Harlem native, who had been incarcerated several times and had overcome substance abuse to earn a master’s degree in social work from Columbia University.”

Strive’s headquarters are based in Harlem, and it is a growing international nonprofit. Its annual grants and donations have grown from $2.75 million in 2008 to $4.1 million in 2012. 

The goal of Strive in 1984, and as it is now, is to provide people who want to find jobs — careers — and move beyond limiting circumstances with “short, intense period of training in attitude, self-presentation and job search techniques with rapid placement and long-term follow-up.”

Those circumstances range from generational poverty to reentry from prison into society, from recent immigration to lack of education.

It calls itself a workforce development agency, but really, the organization helps define and establish a culture of work, and encourage people to achieve. That includes refining skills and attitudes, learning how to dress and present oneself to the professional world, to be accountable, and ultimately to find jobs and be successful.

For Corvacho, the introduction to, and immersion in, Strive helped her aim higher and once again realize those ambitions she first felt decades ago, sitting as a teenager in the Lima college.

“I went to Strive, and when I got there, it was very intense,” she said. She had been to Augusta that morning with Rodman, visiting with Maine’s labor commissioner Jeanne Paquette, and stopping by the Maine Department of Health and Human Resources, to talk about Strive. 

She had also spoken before the two rotaries that meet in Camden. She arrived in Maine earlier in the week, Feb. 2, flying to Maine from New York at the invitation of Rodman. He now lives in Lincolnville and Camden year-round, and is working to establish Strive in this state.

She described Strive as a lesson in learning about the culture of work.

“You need to know the rules of the game,” she said. “And, they pinpoint all your weaknesses. You don’t like to speak in public? They make you come in each morning and tell a joke to the class. Strive makes you uncomfortable because when you are uncomfortable, you can grow.”

One of the methods is to understand how people can “push your buttons,” she said. Once you know that, you know how to control your buttons.

“They teach you how to dress and what to say,” she said.

Dan Domench, of Union, is working for Strive, to help establish the nonprofit in Maine.

“My years helping those recovering from life challenges taught me that recovery is much easier when the independence, hope, self-esteem, and income that comes from self-sustaining employment is there,” he said. “In fact, all of us in the community benefit economically when the unemployed find work. This is especially true in Maine where we have a diminishing number of workers, an increasing number of jobs, and a pool of existing younger workers available, but not yet ready for the workplace.”

He said the work is to fund and develop the program in Maine, and the goal is to first target those reentering society from incarceration, those transitioning off government support, and those recovering from addiction. 

“All boats should rise here, right?” he asked. “We have a large pool in Maine, who have been culturely out of the game for generations. Strive can help them get work.”

Following her immersion at Strive, Corvacho received three job interviews, including one with a tax preparer.

“I’ll teach you the math and the software program,” the business owner told her.

Instead, Corvacho ended up taking a job at Strive for one year, and that’s when she also learned that it is important to keep dreaming.

She achieved her first dream — she was working in an office — but what next?

“You have dreams and you have hope,” she said. “But you have to write it down. You have to make it realistic, otherwise, it will be just a dream.”

She has since left Strive, but with its ongoing support, attended City College and received a degree in community health policy and administration. She bought a house in Queens for her parents, sister and her nephew in 2009, and is now about to start work at a hospital in the Bronx as a staff manager and as an advocate for patients, helping people get through their own rough patches.

She has her own sights set on the future, hoping to effect more personal dreams.

“I want to go for my master’s in public health,” she said. “I want to be a hospital administrator. I want to make global decisions that affect policy and procedures.”

That is from a young woman who had once worked in a factory, who had to come up with her own Social Security number to even get a job in the U.S.

Now, she, her sister and her parents have permanent residency in this country, and Corvacho is helping others actualize their own dreams.

“It’s confidence and knowing how to get there,” she said.

For more information about Strive, visit striveinternational.org

Reach Editorial Director Lynda Clancy at lyndaclancy@penbaypilot.com; 207-706-6657