By: Nermin K. Ahmad
NFBPWC Women on the Move Committee Chair

Women on the Move will be a discussion during the Triennial in St. Kitts. I am still looking for Committee Members to work with – and realize that there is a misunderstanding about our focus. This is NOT ABOUT MIGRANTS, REFUGEES, ASYLUM SEEKING WOMEN COMING TO AMERICA. This Committee is for women like you, your neighbor, me – women who may move for a myriad of reasons – desire, love, financial opportunity, education, health, weather, work. It is intended to create a sisterly network of like-minded business and professional women around the US, in North America and the Caribbean, and globally who can support one another’s success.

Let me know if you are interested in joining this committee – our intention is to make the world a welcoming place for business and professional women – by truly networking our resources across the globe while connecting locally, uniting nationally and igniting globally.

I came across a woman “On The Move.” She moved to the United States with her husband from German, where they met and fell in love. When she came to the US, she discovered he was married, but he did ask for a divorce, and they were wed. She enjoyed her life here – except for not being able to get his children to accept her at all and for the language. She maintained a thick German accent.

I met her in the bathroom of a National Park Service Park. She was crying – weeping while washing her face. When asking her what was wrong, I realized she was German and spoke to her in German. Her husband had died and had never put her name as his wife on his social security or pension. The children kicked her out of her home. She had very little money in the joint account, and did not know who to ask for help. The children sold all her things that they did not throw out. She wanted to commit suicide and had come to the Potomac river to jump in, but was Catholic and could not.

She had not been in touch with her family for a while, but by speaking in German with her, and offering her my husband and my picnic lunch I was able to bring her out into the park. We sat and spoke with her, and without confirming it with one another we knew we had to help her. We helped her make a call to her sister’s home, as she knew the number. The warmth with which she received astonished her. In the meantime, my husband and

I figured out we had enough miles to pay for her to go home, in business class. She had nowhere to go, but she had shown us her still valid passport. We just drove her to Dulles, put her on a place, and told her sister when to accept her.

She did not know how to protect herself in the US. This action paid back a thousand-fold years later – my husband had remembered to put me as his wife for social security, but a prior wife asked to be paid immediately after his death. She received the lump sum payment and his payments for two years, before I pointed out that she was not the wife listed in his social security file, and that she in fact was not, and never had been his wife. At least we knew what to do, and it was finally sorted.

But this is the kind of thing women on the move can be caught by. And are. And we need to provide a sisterhood to protect them.

I call on you to join me, to help me build out this action opportunity. Reach out to me on nerminkahmad@gmail.com for information. Thank you!