Nizamuddin Saifi Story

Nizamuddin is an Afghan immigrant who arrived in the United States with his pregnant wife, and two young boys in March 2022. After being surrounded by chaos, war, fear, and fury he wanted to find a safe and stable life for his family. They had received aid for three months from another non-profit and these funds and rental supports had concurrently run out. He had been actively seeking employment for some time but had difficulty finding a full-time job. Once again, Nizamuddin was in crisis. He worried about being able to provide a home and food for his family.

Mary Ann is a Financial Counselor at our Sumner- Bonney Lake Center for Strong Families. In addition, she also serves the clients we work with in Federal Way and Kent. She has a background in social work, so it was fortunate that she was able to use that knowledge to communicate effectively and start building trust with Nizamuddin.

It is important to remember that securing personal financial security takes time and effort. Our counselors work with individuals and families to provide tools and resources to empower them to build stability. Sometimes it takes a couple of years to improve credit and remove debt. Another integral part of the programs at Sound Outreach is building trusting relationships with clients. All this cannot happen overnight. We generally don’t have funds to help families in crisis and rarely, do we have an opportunity to make a huge impact as Mary Ann did when she met Nizamuddin.

With consistent effort and collaboration, they worked together on an immediate plan for him and his family. Through the Sound Outreach contract with the City of Kent, his family received two months of rental assistance and a utility assistance referral. Mary Ann sent him multiple engineer job listings, a furniture bank referral, a grocery gift card, and clothing. Recently, Nizamuddin called to let MaryAnn know that he got a job that would start in October.

His commitment to making progress has been a driving factor for his success. The goals outlined for him will continue to evolve as he and his family look to the future here in the Northwest. Right now, Nizamuddin is proud to say that Sound Outreach has substantially impacted his life by providing him with support, resources, empowerment, and encouragement.