“I got my feet wet in an internship with Your New Beginning. It’s for people with court-ordered counseling for drug offenses or domestic violence offenses. I challenged myself by working with domestic violence offenders. Their sessions were for 18 weeks, but I had guys stay in my class for 30-40 weeks. They were like, ‘We just need to talk to you every week.’ I built such a bond with them.

“Then I was like, what else can I challenge myself to do? That’s when an opportunity came to work with the homeless population. I met them where they were, on the street. I did everything I could for them, like see them housed and help them get some income.

“People always say, ‘Take a walk in my shoes.’ I feel like I’m able to do that. When I meet someone, I want to see life from their perspective. I want to understand all the emotions that they feel: every hardship, every joy.

“I told my homeless and domestic violence individuals, ‘I know when people see you, they have a preconceived notion about who you are. I don’t have that. I’m a blank slate. I’m non-judgmental. Tell me everything. I want to see things from your perspective.’

“My domestic violence clients would just be getting out of jail and coming back into society. And they would say, ‘I can’t get a job. Once they see felon on my record, once they see jail on my record, I’m just cast away.’

“Same with some of my homeless individuals. They would be like, ‘People don’t know that I had a master’s degree. They don’t know that I had a family. They don’t know that I never touched a drug in my life. I’m just on hard times.’

“Those experiences really motivated me to continue to be a blank slate for people. I like for them to be able to tell their own story, and realize that sometimes the pen is in their hand. If they want to write a better story for themselves, then they have the freedom to do that.”

— Carleigh Joseph Olivas

Carleigh switched from nursing to social work, and finished first in her class at Prairie View A&M University. She also earned a master’s in social work.

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“My mom had diabetes with all the complications. But she just kept going. She kept working as long as she could. She was in and out of the hospital, and we always knew she would come right out until the day that it didn’t happen. That was two years ago on the 29th of this month. It was definitely hard for us all. She was only 59.

“I could talk about her for hours. My mom was a social worker, case worker, for about 35 years. She loved what she did. She loved helping people, finding resources for them after their stay at the hospital, things like that. I saw how dedicated she was and how passionate she was about her job, and it motivated me. I thought, wow, I kind of want to do something like this.

“I’ll be graduating in May with a degree in nutrition (from the University of Texas). I’m leaning toward seeing what I can do with my degree in terms of policy and government. I’m interested in the politics of health care. Ideally, I’d like to work for the Department of Health and Human Services, seeing how I can help out in whatever community I’ll be living in. Like making sure our low-income, minority people have access to fresh foods, health care and other kinds of services they need. I just know that I want to be helping people, like my mom did all those years.”

— Cynthia Pizana

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“I’m planning to go back to school to get my master’s in military social work. There’s a big need in the veteran community. Especially as a female veteran with kids, it’s hard to get the help you need.

“I’ve had to deal with PTSD, but it wasn’t from war. It was from sexual assault in the military, which is what I experienced. It takes a toll on you. And when you’re battling something like that alone, it kind of sets up a barrier between you and your family.

“For a long time, it was very hard. I never told anyone until maybe two years ago when I was at a breaking point in my life. I talked to someone at the Veterans Hospital, and then I came home and I told my husband.

“People tend to want to numb that pain through things like drugs and alcohol abuse. For me, it was none of that. It was mostly just wanting to end my life. There was a point where I had so much self-hate that I even pushed my husband away. My entire life just came down on me.”

— Lydia Rosales-Vega

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• She did not want to feel like a victim anymore
• ‘I felt like I had to do something to help them’

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“I used to be more selfish. I joined the military, and when I got out for the first couple of years I was pretty much still the same. But after I started spending time with my sister’s kids, I realized I should probably consider making a change.

“Originally, I was planning to become an aeronautics engineer. I wanted to build planes, spaceships and whatnot, basically so I could get something out there with my name on it. Then I started thinking, do I really want to do something for myself so that I can consider myself great, or would I rather help other people realize they have the abilities to achieve certain things and support them on their way to doing it?

“One person standing alone at the top of a mountain, it’s pretty lonely. But if you can get a whole bunch of people up there, in the end, that’s what matters.”

— David Aden

The post Now he wants to help more than just himself appeared first on The Baytown Project.