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Nine-Year-Old Rama—Author, Artist, Friend
August 2006
Rama Bushra Imad’s all-American story began in 2001. She and her mother, Sheema, left Pakistan and arrived in the United States two months before 9/11 and settled in Houston near family members. Sheema says candidly,
“I came to America for my daughter. I had always heard this is a place where dreams can come true. I needed to give her a good start.”
Five years later, dreams are coming true for the bright-eyed fourth grader. Rama began writing down ideas and turning them into stories in a secret journal long before anyone suspected she could write. Her secret got out when an observant librarian at Freeman Library in Clear Lake saw her writing and suggested that Rama send one of her stories to the Houston PBS Reading Rainbow Young Writers and Illustrators contest.
In 2005, she won the second grade division with her story entitled "A Girl Who Got Lost in Her Own House." Then in 2006, she followed that up with a first place win in the third grade division with "My Life, My Dream, My Hope," an account of losing her father to brain cancer and finding her way through the feelings of fear and loss. Near the end of the story she writes,
“I learn’t this lesson from my ordeal. There is always something to find. Much good is still in us,
To do a worth while thing for MANKIND.”
While Rama waits to grow up and become a “biomedical technological scientist,” she is busy fundraising for the Cancer Research Endowment at M. D. Anderson. Last summer’s project was to make decorated eggshell pencil-toppers to sell at home shows held by Miss Hartman, a teacher at Falcon Pass School. This year she's making beaded lapel pins. She always attaches a tag and brochure about explaining that all proceeds go to cancer research and donations are tax-deductible.
Gifts to the Cancer Research Endowment may be given in honor of Rama on the
Online Giving Form, our secure credit card donation page.