Johanna

Johanna made one bad decision. Years ago, as a 19-year-old single mother in Tijuana, she was desperate to find financial support for her son. She met a man who offered her money to smuggle a suitcase of diamonds from Mexico to New York. She accepted the offer.

But it turned out those “diamonds” were actually five kilograms of cocaine. She made this discovery at New York’s JFK Airport, along with a swarm of police officers. Johanna would spend the next four years incarcerated.

“I wanted to die; all I did was cry,” she says. “I shamed my parents, and it was very hard to live with that. One day I stopped crying and I realized that I had to face reality.”

While in prison, Johanna learned English and took college-level courses. She also worked in a nursery and coordinated a program to help mothers communicate with their children. Even with these skills and experiences, she still faced a battery of challenges upon leaving incarceration.

Hour Children was there to help. The organization, a Queens-based nonprofit that provides housing and services to incarcerated (and formerly incarcerated) women, allowed her to achieve her major goals: find a job, find housing, and reunite with her son.

It was particularly difficult for her son to readjust to their new life.

“I had to take him to the hospital because he refused to eat,” she remembers. “He didn’t interact with the other kids.  But within a few months these obstacles disappeared and we were happy again.”

In addition to helping formerly incarcerated mothers, Hour Children provides specialized counseling to their often traumatized children. As the family stabilized, Johanna earned a job as coordinator of Hour Children’s Hour Working Women Program. She now assists women like herself -- those recently released from incarceration -- find employment. She lives in Hour Children supportive housing and also studies business management at LaGuardia Community College.

She hopes to continue her forward trajectory -- as an employee, student and mother -- and serve as a role model for the women of Hour Children.

“I want to give women the inspiration and confidence that was given to me,” Johanna says. “Every woman who comes to Hour Working Women Program deserves a chance. They are inspiring, beautiful, strong and have it within themselves to overcome any challenges that come their way. They are working hard with me to say ‘goodbye’ to public assistance and ‘hello’ to the professional world.”

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