Isatu

At 38, Isatu says she is “very old.”

At that age, most Canadian women would consider themselves in the prime of their life.

But Isatu has had more than her share of tragedy. She and her three children came to Canada as refugees from Sierra Leone after her husband was killed by rebels.

In her first year, her basic needs for food, shelter and clothes were covered by a government sponsorship, but Isatu knew she would eventually need to find a job. In her village, she had worked in a medical clinic assisting the doctor but had no formal medical training. She decided to look for factory work. “I wanted to work with my hands,” she explains.

At the YWCA, she studied English and learned to work on a computer. She succeeding in finding a job in a factory, but after just one year she developed back and joint problems and was forced to quit.

Undeterred, Isatu returned to the YWCA and signed up for their Moving on to Success program to upgrade her medical assistance skills and learn office procedures.

Desperate for a job, she registered with an agency for temporary work as a health caregiver, mostly on the night shift, but the pay was very low. “Nine dollars an hour is not enough to support my family,” she says. She knew that upgrading her education to become a certified support worker would increase her pay level and job stability, but worried that a college certificate would take too long. Instead, she enrolled in a private school where she could achieve the certificate more quickly. Even though the YWCA paid half the tuition, Isatu could not afford to both attend school and pay her rent; she and her children— now 21, 18 and 13—were forced to move in with friends.

Isatu is waiting to write the national exams to get her certificate. Her dream is to find permanent work as a caregiver for the elderly and physically-impaired.