“When I first came here, I started at zero,” Fatna Hamid said through interpreter Lina.

By zero, she meant beginning again. She had exchanged the heat of Kenya for the Canadian cold, could understand English only in fragments, struggled to decipher written words, and had to learn the bewildering architecture of everyday life in a country she was expected to make home. Her young son Munzir was navigating his own upheaval, anxious around unfamiliar people and distressed whenever he had to leave his mother’s side.

Six months later, the unfamiliar has begun to yield. Fatna shops for groceries independently and enters a bank confident that she knows what to do. She understands more English than she can comfortably speak and, while reading remains difficult, she is determined to one day express herself without an interpreter.

Munzir’s world has widened alongside hers. The little boy who once struggled to separate from his mother now makes friends, practises taking turns, and sometimes refuses to leave gatherings because he is having too much fun.

Their progress began with someone crossing the threshold of their home.

SMART, Supporting Mothers and Raising Toddlers, serves families with children from 18 months to 3 years old. A coordinator trains a home visitor in child development, literacy and practical life skills. The home visitor shares that knowledge with the mother, who becomes her child’s first teacher. Learning moves from one person to another, gathering strength as it goes.

Many home visitors are immigrants themselves, and the work can provide valuable Canadian experience, professional development and the confidence to pursue further opportunities.

When Munzir turns 3, he can enter HIPPY, a kindergarten readiness program that introduces vocabulary, letters, numbers, shapes and early learning. As he prepares for school, Fatna will continue building her own English and literacy beside him, mother and son progressing through the pages together.

Monthly gatherings extend that education beyond books. Families gain practical knowledge about banking, dental care, family health, and the systems that shape everyday life in Canada. This is literacy in its fullest form, giving people the knowledge to make decisions, navigate services and participate in their communities.

Fatna’s progress comes as the future of SMART and HIPPY remains uncertain. After federal funding was cut, the Toronto-based Polar Foundation helped sustain the programs through September. Decoda Literacy Solutions, through Literacy Kamloops, helped provide SMART materials while the organizations worked to develop another way of supporting families.

Angie Naslund, the program coordinator, has watched women arrive hesitant and dependent, then complete three years with ambitions of becoming teachers, education assistants and members of the workforce.

“They are free and they are independent,” she said.

Fatna is only at the beginning of that transformation, but the direction of her life has already changed. Each word she recognizes expands her world, each errand she completes strengthens her independence and everything she learns becomes part of Munzir’s inheritance.

“It takes a village,” Naslund said.

That truth lies at the heart of Your Gift. Their Next Chapter. A gift does not write Fatna’s future for her. It sustains the people and programs beside her while she finds the words, acquires the skills and authors the next chapter herself.

Your gift helps provide the programs, practitioners, and resources learners need right now. Support Decoda Literacy Solutions’ Your Gift. Their Next Chapter. campaign at literacymonth.ca or donate below.