Growing up in El Salvador, Ana Ascencio remembers visiting hospitals and jails with her grandmother when she was a child.

“That’s where I come from — since I was very small, we always took time to visit the sick,” she said in Spanish.

Ascencio lives in Manchester now and is training to become a Licensed Nursing Assistant. As she’s learning, she hopes to be patient and take time to help others like her grandmother Lucía did.

Ascencio is part of a small cohort of students studying to become Licensed Nursing Assistants at the International Institute of New England (IINE). Now in its fourth year, the free program addresses New Hampshire's statewide nursing shortage and gives immigrants the education they need for better jobs.

Like Asecencio, students live in Manchester but come from all ov

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