International women’s day celebrates the achievements of women across the world. Today, one Montreal woman is continuing her path toward a dream she never imagined while she experiencing homelessness.
“I feel like, reborn,” Sandrine Nsangou told Global News.
In 2019, Nsangou’s husband left her. The mom of two children had no savings, was evicted and moved into a shelter operated by Logifem.
“In that period of my life, I was so depressed. You know, I didn’t know what to do next,” she said.
Then, the 37-year-old was introduced to Up With Women. The charity was founded over a decade ago by Lia Grimanis, who experienced homelessness when she was a teenager.
“The day that I decided to live was the day that I made that promise on my shelter bed, that I was going to help others to rebuild their lives faster than I could because it took me almost 10 years just to get back to my starting line.”
The Guinness World record-holding strongwoman shares her winning mentality with at-risk women exiting poverty.
“We’re stronger than we think we are, you know, and that success belongs to everybody,” said Grimanis.
Up With Women clients work with coaches in a year-long intensive career and entrepreneurship program in Ontario, Quebec, Alberta, and British Columbia. According to Grimanis, 300 women will benefit from the program this year alone.
Anne Lewis has coached three clients over the past year and a half. She said working with a coach is an opportunity for women to rewrite their life story.
“I’m hoping that they will come into their own, that they will realize that they can be the writers of their own futures, the masters of their own destiny,” she told Global News.
Nsangou said the program “was amazing for her” at the lowest point in her life. With the resources offered to her, she even went back to school.
“Whatever dream you put in the side in the past, you can start over again,” she said.
Nsangou is now living her dream. She moved out of the shelter into her own home in 2021 with the help of her new job, working for the same organization that helped lift her out of poverty.
Her message to women like her is that “their life is not finished” and any hardships they are experiencing will pass.
The once homeless Montrealer hopes to inspire these women as she starts her second chance at a better life.