2022-100-Faces-Book - Flipbook - Page 90
Yashinique
Protector. Mother. Survivor.
Yashinique says she’s desperate for peace. For several
months, she and her daughter were living in a domestic
violence shelter while seeking refuge from her abuser,
her child’s father.
In 2018, her abuser asked her to purchase a gun
because he was unable to buy one on his own. A
straw purchase, or illegally purchasing a gun that was
intended for someone else, is a federal offense. When
he misused it, Yashinique was arrested and indicted.
After months on trial, losing her job and spending three
weeks in a mental health co-op for a suicide attempt,
she was sentenced to six months in an Alabama
prison followed by two years’ probation.
“This was my first time ever getting into trouble,
my first time ever dealing with any kind of
federal situation.”
Yashinique’s sentence ended in 2019. That’s when
she heard about Project Return, a United Way partner
agency. Project Return helps those who are formerly
incarcerated to gain employment and build new lives.
“They gave me clothing; they gave me a bunch of
resources so that I could start trying to piece back
together everything that I had lost. All of that was so
helpful, especially seeing as I came home and had
absolutely nothing,” she says. “They helped me figure
out how to navigate now that I have that labeling as
a felon.”
She started in a program at Project Return where
she’d go to classes to learn about fielding questions
from others, responding to negative assumptions,
budgeting and more.
“They’d teach you how to basically prepare yourself for
different questions you’ll get asked: why you got the
felony, how it happened, when it happened, how to talk
about that.”
People who are assimilating back into the workforce
often face judgment and unfair bias because of
their past. Yashinique says before her felony she
remembers projecting that judgment on former
inmates who had come to work in her office.
“And then everybody was doing the same thing to me,”
she says. “I just wished they wouldn’t judge.”
At the end of Project Return’s program, she received
help crafting her resume and applying for employment.
“I got a few job offers, which I didn’t really expect.
They went as far as getting me back and forth to work,
connecting me with bus passes, anything you can
name, they helped with.”
Part of building her new life was severing ties with her
daughter’s father.
“He did not take that well,” she says.
That’s when she and her daughter moved into a
domestic violence shelter, where they lived for several
months while she worked to find a safe place for them.
With the help of Project Return and the domestic
violence shelter, they were able to move into their own
home at the start of the year. The shelter helps cover
the first three months’ rent while she works, saves
and goes to school full-time. She plans to receive her
bachelor’s degree and become a midwife when she
graduates. Her daughter—a cheerleader—is settling
into her own niche: She’s taking pottery classes and
loves any activity that lets her be creative.
“I am trying to get both of us mentally to a good place
and just trying to get us somewhere that’s full of
peace—to bring back balance and peace. So that is
what I’ve been praying for and that is what I’ve really
been working hard toward. We all have a checkered
past, and some are worse than others. It’s just about
how you’re trying to move forward.”
Project Return
