Brian Saephanh

I didn’t finish high school because of a big family and a small house. In my family, there are 13 kids, and I’m the tenth child. With ten people in the house, things got crowded so I never really had personal space at home, which made it a difficult environment to study or do homework. It was difficult to stay in a house that I didn’t want to, so I ended up going out all the time and eventually dropped out of high school.

It wasn’t until about three years later when I decided to go back to school. I was at the Oakland school district office when I was told about East Oakland Youth Development Center and thought I’d try the school out. One week later I was enrolled in EOYDC, but about one and a half months later, I started getting lazy and stopped going to school. Ms. Anana was the one who motivated me to stay on track. She encouraged me to get through high school and I took her words and put them to good use, going through the GED tests. One month later, I finally got through them and now I’m through with high school and I’m ready for college. EOYDC has helped me out so much, especially Ms. Anana and I appreciate all the trouble they went through to make my life better.

Brian Saephanh
2008 Graduate