Aiza still remembers clearly the challenges she faced when she first moved to Canada from Venezuela with her husband and eight-month-old daughter:
To find a job, to speak English, making friends. To have contact with another person. I remember my first job. One of the coworkers spoke English, but I have only been in Canada for one month. I didn’t understand nothing, and at that moment, I felt so, so bad.
Aiza and her husband had a second daughter, Valentina, and Aiza stayed at home with her two little children. Speaking only Spanish with them, Aiza joined HIPPY with Valentina because she wanted her daughter to improve her English vocabulary. With her older daughter, Aiza hadn’t had the chance to participate in the program and had struggled supporting her in school with the Canadian curriculum.
When Valentina started school, her teacher told Aiza that he could notice how well prepared she was:
HIPPY is a very good guide to help teach my daughter. When she went to school, her teacher said, ‘She is the best. I can see that you spent time with her to teach her.
In 2012, Aiza became a HIPPY Home Visitor and is now able to help other mothers in her community. She knows the obstacles immigrant mothers face and gets to share her experience with them during the HIPPY home visits:
I can talk to them about how to find a job, how to learn to speak English, how to help your kids to grow in this culture.