2007 Clients of the Year
Youth and Family Client of the Year
Taslima Nasrin
Taslima Nasrin has always placed education atop her list of priorities. After earning a secondary high school certificate in her hometown of Sylhet, Bangladesh in 1996, Taslima planned to attend college. Her plans were postponed; however when she met and married Mohammed and the couple received word that they were both selected in a visa drawing. A year after they were married, the two would make a 30-hour trip to the United States and begin a brand new life in the City of Hamtramck.
Although the couple still consider themselves very lucky, they describe their arrival and adjustment to their new home as a difficult and helpless time. With no family or friends to turn to they struggled with finding access to medical care, locating grocery stores, and navigating a complicated system of community services. A hard worker, Mohammed was able to maintain good jobs that have allowed him to support his growing family, but like most Americans the couple aspires to achieve more.
When a friend told Taslima about Wayne-Metro’s ESL (English as a Second Language) classes, she was quick to call. Taslima says that she knew that improving her English would help her to get to college. Taslima entered the Wayne-Metro Even Start Program in September of 2003 and achieved her ESL proficiency in 2004. She then transitioned into the Even Start GED Family Literacy Program and successfully passed the GED test in May 2007. Along the way she also received her U.S. citizenship.
Talima says the Even Start Program allowed her to go to school and still remain a devoted mother. She was able to take her children to school with her and did not have the worry or expense of finding a daycare provider. The program also provided the family with opportunities to experience the theater, the Detroit Science Center, and parenting classes. Mohammed says that it is unlikely he could have afforded to give his family those priceless gifts himself.
“Ms. Katy and my teachers have been like angels to us,” Taslima says. “If we have a problem I go to them and they help to solve. “We ask her advice a lot and she is busy, but she always has time for us.”
Now as a mother of three, Maruffal (10), Mahfuz (7), and Marzia (6) Taslima is also instilling her love of learning and the importance of education into the lives of her children. All three are graduates of the Wayne-Metro Head Start Program and attend the Hamtramck Academy where they excel in reading. Taslima is currently taking classes at Wayne County Community College and credits Wayne-Metro for assisting her with applying for grants and student loans. She is pursuing a degree in accounting and hopes she can work for Wayne-Metro one day. She is also thrilled to report that she recently obtained her Michigan State driver's license and looks forward to driving herself to and from school. Mohammed feels she will be ready to do so very soon.
Community Development
Client of the Year
Masuda Khanam
Masuda Khanam grew up in Dhaka in the small country of Bengladesh. Masuda says her whole country is smaller than the state of New York; so when she stepped off the plane at eighteen, she was in awe and in love with America. Originally Masuda was only planning to stay for a short visit when her niece was born, but once she got here she began attending school and applied for a student visa. In 1998 she met her husband and when the two married in 2001 Masuda knew the U.S. was home.
The couple would settle in Hamtramck in 2003 after Mohammed visited family who lived there. Mohammed liked the size and the affordability of the houses. The community also had a large Bengali population which would offer the couple a way to connect with others who shared their heritage and belief system.
Masuda enrolled in the Wayne-Metro Even Start Program in May of 2007 and successfully passed her GED test on the first try. She continued to participate in Even Start after reaching her goal because she loved the parenting classes and activities. Masuda says the location was convenient and because she could bring Sameer to school with her, she and her husband felt relieved at not having to find a sitter.
“I didn’t have to find a babysitter while I went to school,” says Masuda”. “We don’t have any family in the area and leaving him would have been very hard for me.”
In August, Masuda and Mohammed purchased their second home in the City of Hamtramck. The newly constructed bungalow was built by Excellent Construction, Wayne-Metro’s construction company. After the first walk through, they fell in love with the home and put in an offer that same day. The couple qualified for a down payment subsidy which she says was very helpful. Masuda says the three bed, three bathroom home suits her family much better than their previous one. She says it is good to have three bathrooms and a basement when her large extended family comes to visit, and she says they visit often.
“I want to stay here forever because the people are so nice and I’ve made a lot of friends,” says Masuda. “My son’s school is right down the block so we are close at all times.”
Sameer graduated in 2007 from the Wayne-Metro Head Start Program and is now attending the Bridge Academy in Hamtramck. With her GED Masuda plans to pursue her dream to earn a Bachelors Degree in Early Childhood Education. She says she loves small children and could offer then a great deal as a Kindergarten or First Grade teacher. She plans to start attending Wayne County Community College this year.
Homeless Programs
Clients of the Year
Robert & Sandy Antkiewicz
Robert and Sandy Antkiewicz met when she was seventeen and he was eighteen at the Training Center in Hamtramck. Robert says Sandy was sweet on him, but she says he was the one who came to her locker. Both agree they are soul mates and after fourteen years of marriage they are still very much in love.
Robert and Sandy both live with physical and mental disabilities that prevent them from driving and going to work. Robert began having seizures at age seventeen and must take anti-seizure medications each and every day to keep his condition under control. Robert says that with a good diet, adequate rest, and by not allowing stress to affect him he is able to live happily with epilepsy. Sandra experiences blackouts that further complicate the couple’s life. The blackouts are often brought on by stress or heat and are uncontrollable, so they cope as best they can and rely on each other for help and support.
In 2000, the couple was living in a trailer in the City of Ecorse when a raw sewage leak forced them out of their home. After evacuating the tenants, the landlord put up caution tape and closed the trailer park before the couple could remove their furniture and belongings. Robert and Sandy became homeless virtually overnight leaving them with only the shirts on their backs.
Sandy’s mother was the one who brought them to Wayne-Metro’s Ecorse office for help. Robert and Sandy had tried to get help from other shelters and service organizations, but were told they had to be separated in order to receive services. Robert says they told him he would go to a homeless shelter for men and Sandy to one for women, but they were determined to stay together.
“Marriages are destroyed when you separate,” says Robert. “I wanted to stay with my wife and Wayne-Metro helped me.”
The Antkiewicz were provided emergency shelter in a motel in Southgate through the Wayne Homeless Network Project. Within a week, a case manager assisted the couple in finding an apartment in the City of Ecorse and they say they were thrilled. The agency helped them with move in costs, got the utilities current, found them a bed, and some furniture. Wayne Homeless Network funds continued to subsidize 70 percent of Robert and Sandy’s rent until a Section 8 voucher was awarded in 2004. Over the past seven years, the agency has provided the couple with transportation services and food assistance
“Wayne-Metro helped us out of our homelessness,” says Sandy. “We would have wound up on the streets otherwise.”
With Wayne-Metro's support, Robert and Sandy continue to live independently and are now caretakers for their aging parents. The two ride their bikes and take the bus to the grocery store and pharmacy to make sure their parents have what they need. Sandy says Robert is a hero because he saved her mother's life earlier this year when he found her passed out on her living room couch. His quick thinking is why she is alive today.
Community Support Services
Client of the Year
Jessica Hall
Jessica Hall remembers bits and pieces of when she and her sister were taken from their parents by social service workers at just five years old. The two girls went into foster care here in Michigan while their four other brothers and sisters were adopted and moved to Alabama. She says that many memories are harder to talk about than others, and some have been permanently lost to epilepsy.
Jessica moved from foster home to foster home until age sixteen when she became a ward of the state and was placed in an independent living program with yet another family. In her junior year of high school, Jessica became pregnant and at four months gestation; an amniocentesis determined that the baby had a condition called hydrocephalus. He had water on his brain and doctors said that if he made it through the delivery, he would be deformed and handicapped for the rest of his life. Scared and alone, Jessica made the decision to keep her baby.
Dayvion was born in March of 1999 and would remain in intensive care for more than a year. In spite of her health and hardships, in June of 1999 Jessica graduated from high school with honors and was awarded a four-year college scholarship. For three years Jessica went to school and worked six days a week, twelve hours each day until her seizures became so severe she was forced to quit.
With no income, the family struggled and the Hall family enrolled in Wayne-Metro’s Homeless Prevention Program in July 2006. Upon entering the program, Jessica and her children were living in an upstairs flat. Jessica had to carry Davion and his wheel chair up and down the stairs along with her younger son Deante. Not only did Davion’s many visits to the hospital and to doctor appointments put a lot of stress on Jessica, but the small apartment did not accommodate all of his medical equipment. Wayne-Metro helped them to relocate to a home in Romulus that is much better suited for their needs. The agency provided the family with rent, utility and moving cost assistance along with food and clothing.
“In the foster care system I always felt like I was just a case number,” Jessica says. “Ms. Denise and Wayne-Metro are different. They care…they are really looking out for me.”
Jessica is nine credits away from a Bachelor’s degree and her disappointment often haunts her. She thinks about her days as a cheerleader, a high school volleyball player and the award winning essay she wrote that prompted a personal letter from President Clinton. She thinks of her brothers in jail and her sisters who never graduated from high school and she knows she has worked way too hard to give up. She says that her hopes and dreams maybe out of reach for now, but when she looks at her children she knows she is doing what she is meant to do.
“If my son can go through twenty-seven surgeries and come out of the anesthesia with a smile on his face, I can find reasons to smile too.”