JACKSON, MI – 20 years in the past, Rabiah Majeed and her household absorbed a number of intestine punches.
Her husband Yusaf had bother discovering work for 15 years, she mentioned. She grew to become the first breadwinner, driving 90 minutes each methods from Jackson to Basic Motors in Auburn Hills. Each had been elevating their 4 youngsters.
On high of all that, “we had been homeless,” Majeed mentioned.
She wanted assist. She mentioned discovered it within the type of Habitat for Humanity in Jackson, making use of and finalizing buy of a house in 2001.
The Majeeds received the 2019 House owner for the 12 months Award at a Nov. 5 ceremony in Lansing. Larger Jackson Habitat for Humanity Govt Director Wendy Clow mentioned the dignity was because of their capability to repay the preliminary mortage in April, plus continued service to the group over the past 18 years.
“They’ve carried out every part that they needed to do,” Clow mentioned. “(Rabiah) is on a committee that works for the board to do household choice and household assist. Primarily, she supplies mentorship and management for the households which can be coming into this system now. This can be a textbook success story for Habitat.”
Habitat is a “hand up, not a hand out” group, Clow mentioned. This implies Majeed, like a number of home-owner candidates, wanted to satisfy necessities, resembling present process hours of economic counseling and placing in 300 hours of “sweat fairness” into the house.
“We needed to sand the partitions,” Majeed mentioned. “We needed to put up many of the drywall. After which within the basement, one of many (development supervisors)…sat in a chair as I stuffed the insulation throughout. (The insulation) alone took six to seven hours.”
Her now 5 youngsters, Reba, Raina, Jabril, Ibraheem and Ahmad, realized by means of the expertise methods to keep devoted regardless of a number of duties, Majeed mentioned.
“They realized methods to by no means surrender by seeing their mother,” she mentioned. “They realized power. They realized methods to pay it ahead.”
Majeed credited her husband with taking the lion’s share of the duties at dwelling. She mentioned she would come dwelling from work, and he can be placing their daughter’s hair into ponytails.
“We by no means wanted a babysitter,” she mentioned.
Her husband, who labored as a salesman at Sears, presently works for Daybreak Meals Merchandise, Inc., Majeed mentioned.
Whereas their partnership helped stability their hectic lives, Majeed credited one other little bit of assist for serving to her course of the final 20 years of hardship: remedy.
The therapist, Gene Harris, helped her course of the trauma of her state of affairs in the course of the late 1990s, she mentioned.
“I had no siblings. I had no grandparents. So who do I speak to,” Majeed mentioned. “He informed me how I used to be chopping off everybody round me…he helped me speak in confidence to some ladies who grew to become position fashions for me as a mom.”
The Majeeds are Muslim, so Rabiah fittingly mentioned that religion is the perfect piece of recommendation she provides households making use of for Habitat properties.
“Maintain the religion within the course of,” she mentioned. “Regardless of how onerous it will get. There’s going to be occasions once they need to say, ‘I don’t need this home no extra.’ You bought all these payments coming at you and also you simply need to surrender.
“I simply need to allow them to know that when you need assistance, come again to us and we will help you.”
