From participant to employee
Woman gets job at Gerard’s House helping young mothers in program she once benefited from
Gerard’s House parent peer navigator Sayra Lozano remembers that after her son was born prematurely about 3½ years ago, she was too nervous to bathe the tiny baby herself. She was 21, and her mother would often take on the task.
Then she and baby Ezequiel, who has Down syndrome, became homeless after she fled domestic violence at the hands of another family member.
Lozano had to do the bathing herself while struggling to care for Ezequiel while getting by on Social Security payments for his disability.
After the pair moved from shelter to shelter, the Nuestra Jornada program for immigrant families at Gerard’s House gave Lozano solace. Later, it gave her a job.
“When I met her for the first time, he was really tiny,” Nuestra Jornada outreach specialist Roxana Melendez said of Lozano and Ezequiel, who at the time was equipped with an oxygen tank to help with his pulmonary hypertension — a type of high blood pressure in the arteries that bring blood to the lungs and is more common in children born with Down syndrome.
Back then, Lozano was participating in a leg of the program designed for the same young mothers she helps now.
“She said, ‘I want to help,’ ” Melendez said. “Even when she was going through all of that, she was always helping others.”
Lozano was hired about six months ago by the organization in partnership with the Expanding Opportunities for Young Families program of the Santa Fe Community Foundation. Helping parents through the pandemic is a key focus of her work, but the position is permanent.
Melendez described Lozano as “warm and loving” toward the young mothers she helps to find resources such as food and rental assistance.
Lozano’s life has changed dramatically. Ezequiel is attending preschool at Nye Early Childhood Center. He’s curious and loves to