That started to change when she found a babysitting role in Yonkers. She had recently graduated from high school, and it was her first job. She was taking time off to plan what she wanted to do next.
Babysitting gave her some confidence and, unexpectedly, a sense of kinship with the parents of the child she took care of. They explained that their son didn’t have many friends at his elementary school. He didn’t talk much. Ms. Ambroise coaxed him out of his shell by sitting with him as he played with his trains. Little by little, he opened up to her, she said, and the family would sometimes invite her to stay for dinner and eat dishes like cold noodles. Their embrace was one of the few times she truly felt part of a family since she left Haiti.
“I just felt so welcome and so happy there,” she said. That connection, she added, is rare in an aggressively chaotic city like New York.
Despite struggling toward the end of her high school studies, she was accepted to the nursing program at Medgar Evers College, where she is now a sophomore. Children’s Aid, one of the organizations supported by The New York Times Communities Fund, helped to pay for school supplies and other essentials.
When she has finished college and her travels, she intends to return to Haiti. She hopes her nursing degree might be useful in a country where basic health care is in critically short supply. “I want to give back to Black people,” she said.
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