In The Life of a Case Worker: Meet Sara

A sit down interview with the first caseworker at NZF

In 2016, when Sara graduated from University of Toronto with a Bachelor of Science degree, majoring in Psychology and Professional Writing, she knew she wanted to pursue a career that combines both psychology and writing within an Islamic environment. “I didn’t even know if something I liked existed,” Sara told me.

In May, as she was scrolling through her Facebook feed, Sara came across a job posting of a friend who shared a post by the National Zakat Foundation. They were looking for an Arabic-speaking Caseworker to help with the recent influx of refugee and refugee claimants in Canada seeking financial assistance. Sara had only vaguely heard about NZF, so she began looking into the organization. With her interest growing, Sara applied for the job in hopes that she would receive a position and waited for an offer. “Out of all my options, this [NZF] was my priority and so when I never heard back, I applied for other job postings.”

In August 2016, after four months of waiting and two pending offers, Sara finally heard back from NZF. “I found that it [Zakat] is such a beautiful pillar. It contained so many amazing information that I wasn’t aware of in the beginning...it just opened my mind and I kept on thinking about how important Zakat is in Canada.” A week later Sara was offered the job.

Having done all her research beforehand, Sara understood what the position would entail, but she still had her concerns.

“I found it hard to actually believe that people in Canada need help or that they could be Zakat eligible. So for me it was hard to grasp that,”

She recounts. Sara, who was the first hired Case Worker at NZF, was confronted with an abundant number of cases. Her work, which was mostly centred around refugees and refugee claimants, was emotionally heavier than she had previously expected. Having to deal with parents of hungry children demanding financial assistance, or the grievances of physically disabled members of the community was more painful than she could imagine, but still, despite everything, she loved the role she played in all of it, “When they gave me the actual cases and I looked into the documents and spoke to the clients, I felt that I was in the right place.”

Concerning one of her cases, Sara recounts a family of 12 living in Canada as permanent residents from Syria. “Their problem was that CCB (Canadian Child Benefits) wasn’t coming in yet because they had to wait for three months after they moved into their own place for it to begin. So we assisted them for 2 to 3 months before their CCB came in. On average, government-sponsored refugee families receive $1,600 regardless of their family size, so we took care of their rent and they managed their food.”

According to the prophetic tradition, Zakat should be paid monetarily, however, because of NZF’s legal status as a charity, the foundation cannot write cheques for clients directly. Instead, NZF alleviates the difficulties of the clients by paying landlords and other expenses off, while providing food vouchers to the families that need them.

Not all cases were as black and white. In another difficult case, Sara worked with a Palestinian refugee-claimant family of seven. Both parents held Master’s Degree and were looking for jobs that were related to their field of study. Due to his wife’s recent birth, the father had to stay home to take care of his children. The family did not have Permanent Resident status and they had a shortfall of $1,400 per month. NZF first assisted them with rent for a few months, but after noticing a lack of effort on the families part, Sara had to let the family know the foundation couldn’t support them anymore and closed the case. “It was a step that had to be done. I felt satisfied with the panel decision and they [the family] understood.”

After dealing with many similar cases, Sara started to realize that she needed the same emotional support that she was offering to her recipients as well. Alhamdulillah, after a couple of months, more Case Workers joined NZF and they all began to lean on each other for support.

Not all the stories Sara shared with me were dark. A lot of the clients whose cases were closed found work and moved forward with their lives after the temporary financial setback they experienced. One of the main goals of NZF is to assist clients in becoming self-sufficient after they receive their funds. Due to this, Case Workers make sure they provide clients with contacts and resources when closing cases so that clients have a long-term plan.

One client who had received assistance for a month or two after he lost his job even came back as a donor! “He said I’m back to working now and I would like to donate to National Zakat Foundation. So from being a client, he became a donor to NZF,” Sara gushes. “I remember a female client who we assisted. She came back and told us she had started her own sewing business, so this was Alhamdulillah another amazing case.”

In 2018, Sara was awarded NZF Case Worker of the Year at the National Zakat Foundation Summit in Toronto. In a humbling message to her co-workers, Sara wrote:

“I am finally learning that no matter how hard I try to remain just, to become a source of Rizq (provision) and to be merciful, that after all, the perfect judge is Allah, the true provider is Allah, and that Allah is the Most Merciful and the Most Kind. I need your prayers and so do all the workers at NZF.

اَللّٰهُمَّ اَرِنَا الْحَقَّ حَقًا وَّارْزُقْنَا اتِّبَاعَه وَاَرِنَا الْبَاطِلَ بَاطِلًا وَّارْزُقْنَا اجْتِنَابَه

O Allah! Enable us to see the Truth as Truth and give us the ability to follow it. And enable us to see the falsehood as false and give us the ability to refrain from it.”

I’d like to thank Sr. Sara, our Senior Case Worker at NZF, for her patience and for taking out the time to answer my questions. This article would not have been possible without her cooperation.

Written by: Aisha H.