Naima Turner arrived in Michigan in August 2009. She had an eight-day-old newborn and three other children aged ten, nine and two and was facing a new life as a single mother after separating from her husband. She had no income, no car, no furniture, and her only support system was her mother.
Turner had one thing going for her, though, and that was her certainty that she knew what she wanted to become, though she wasn’t quite sure how she would get there – yet. She was starting her life over again with nothing but love and determination.
She and her children stayed in her mother’s one room basement for three months until she got her own place in a trailer home. She had to ask for assistance from the Michigan Department of Human Services to survive. In order to get help from Michigan Works she needed to volunteer. So, she volunteered, cared for children, and started going to school full time at SC4, taking the prerequisite courses needed to get into the Associate Degree Nursi