“I have had a hard life. It made me want to be
the person who can help others.”
N. wanted a career in the medical field for as long as she can remember. She and her family have endured great hardship due to political and international events. Yet, rather than turning to anger or despair, these experiences inspired great compassion and selflessness in N. When she joined Live & Learn in 2017, N. was finally able to fulfill her dream.
In 1988, when N. was just seven years old, her family was deported from their war-torn country to the USSR. Over the next 17 years, they would live in poverty without opportunities like education. “No shoes, no food, nowhere to sleep – I experienced that as a child.” In 2005, N. and her family emigrated to the United States as refugees.
At the time, N. was married and had a young son. N. and her family spoke no English when they began building a new life in the United States. “Here was opportunity,” N. recalls. She and her husband worked hard. They had two more children. After a few years, as the language and culture became a little more familiar, N. enrolled at Pima Medical Institute and earned a certificate in phlebotomy, a meaningful step towards the career she longed for.
A few years later, N. returned to Pima Medical Institute to take classes in respiratory therapy. Her husband worked two jobs. She went to school, did homework at night when her kids were asleep, worked weekends, and cared for their three children and for her sick mother. The family had no savings, no safety net.
“It was a really tough time for my family,” she explains. “I never had time for anything but work, school, or taking care of my family. I was barely sleeping for those years.”
Then, someone at Pima told her, “Just call this number, and Live & Learn will help you.”
“Live & Learn got in touch with me right away. I was so exhausted and stressed and I was crying every day. Live & Learn told me, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll help.’ And they really did!”
In 2017, with Live & Learn’s emotional and financial support, N. completed her Respiratory Therapy classes and passed the difficult certification exam. Now, she has the career she always dreamed of: a career that allows her to help people in their times of suffering. Her warmth and compassion, as well as her fluency in five languages, makes N. an exceptional medical professional.
Through her incredible determination over the years, N. did much more than just change her life. She shaped her children’s futures. Her eldest son recently graduated from high school. He volunteers at a hospital and will be starting college later this year to pursue a medical career, just like his mother.
