Our story of Enise’s journey to Pittsburgh continues with her introduction to SHIM programs. (If you missed part one, you can find it HERE.)
“I was a little nervous but when I saw people, everybody like me, I got excited.”
Despite not speaking English, Enise embraced the opportunity to meet new people. Learning more about the neighborhood SHIM was in, Enise told her husband she wanted to move to Prospect Park in Whitehall immediately. She wasted no time and enrolled her son in SHIM’s Early Childhood Program and started taking English classes with Literacy Pittsburgh. Enise couldn’t believe that the classes were free and felt extremely grateful for the programs at SHIM.
As Enise attended more SHIM programs, she realized that she wasn’t alone. She attended Women’s Group at SHIM, which opened her eyes to the shared experiences of other women. Even though they spoke different languages—Arabic, Burmese, and Nepali—the women quickly realized they were experiencing similar challenges and offered each other nurturing support.
Enise was touched by SHIM’s supportive staff members during her challenging times. When she experienced challenges with a high-risk pregnancy, SHIM’s program director Courtney went above and beyond to drive her to a free clinic every two weeks for nine months, to ensure she was getting the medical care she needed. Enise was so appreciative of this support that she called Courtney her children’s “second mom” and called SHIM’s Family Center her “second house”.
Enise’s story is like many of the families that SHIM serves. Utilizing the holistic programming that SHIM offers, Enise started attending food pantries and back to school distributions to help stretch her family’s budget. Her children attended SHIM youth programs to improve their language skills, and she turned to SHIM for help filling out paperwork, reading mail, and filing her taxes.
“God bless them, they help big, big, big.”
Stay tuned to learn how Enise became empowered to chase her dreams of employment in Part 3 in September’s newsletter. Sign up for the newsletter HERE.
