At Arab American Family Services, our immigration department is hard at work to help clients succeed in becoming American citizens and strive to reach the American dream.
Rima Najia, AAFS’s Immigration and Citizenship Program Coordinator is always giving her all to help every client that walks through our doors.
“Helping people become citizens is one of the most rewarding feelings,” says Najia.
“Seeing the joy on their faces once they become citizens of the United States, is one that truly warms my heart,” she said. “All of my clients are special to me, but one sticks out because of the health situation that she faced,” Najia said.
The client came to AAFS wanting to apply for citizenship, but was so doubtful of her abilities to learn the one hundred civics questions required for the test. Her English was not at full capacity and she was afraid her memory was not as sharp and before.
The client had a heart condition which made her feel more anxious when preparing for the test and the interview.
With help from the AAFS civics and ESL departments, they managed to get her to learn everything she needed to know about the history of the United States and the English language in order to pass the interview section of the exam.
“A day before her interview I told her she could come into the office and I’ll help her go through anything that she doesn’t understand and explain it further to her,” Najia said.
“She was so doubtful of her self and thought that she’ll definitely fail it. I told her, that she can and she will pass the test and that I believed in her,” she added.
The encouragement was all the client needed to help her go far.
After the exam, she came back to AAFS with excellent news: she passed her citizenship exam!
She was so ecstatic and thrilled, as she walked into the office, proudly wearing her American flag t-shirt. She was proud of herself and expressed her love and gratitude to all of us saying that without the help of all of us at the office and our encouragement, she wouldn’t have passed ever.
The look in her eyes said it all, she was so proud of herself for achieving this huge step and we were so happy and blessed to be a part of that.
After taking her oath, she came in to our office with some homemade food as a token of appreciation for our help.
Her appreciation was so heartfelt especially after the fact that during that time, the budget was cut for many of the social service agencies like AAFS. Because of the cuts, many programs ended, including the program I was holding, the NAI ( New Americans Initiative ) where we helped people become citizens for free.
She expressed her feelings by saying: ” If it weren’t for AAFS and the help they gave me for learning and understanding the material, I would have never passed the test and became a citizen. The services and help they provide us are very important. I don’t know what I would’ve done without them”.
“This is one of many examples we get from our clients being happy and content with our services and help we provide. And one of the reasons that makes me so happy & proud to be a part of AAFS,” Najia said.
