Positive Pathways Blazed with Steadfast Support

From left: Reda Shehabeldin, Allison Joseph and Sethe Shea at the MY TURN office in Manchester. MY TURN provides anti-poverty resources and support, especially for people who were formerly incarcerated.

MY TURN is known to community members in gateway cities as a launch point where people unleash their potential and strive for personal successes and new heights.

Tucked quietly away on the threshold to Manchester’s West Side, with additional services offered in Nashua, Rochester and Franklin, MY TURN is a nonprofit sector stronghold that evades a single definition.

Executive Director Allison Joseph, the heart of the organization, even struggles to pin it down.

“In a nutshell version, we’re an anti-poverty agency. We help people gain financial stability, through primarily education and employment training opportunities,” she says. “But we do so much work on the front end to make sure that the people who come through our doors know they are worthy of the opportunities in front of them. When you’re having the worst day of your life, we’re where you come.”

While primarily servicing youth in grades 6-12 plus young adults, MY TURN’s helping hand, community care and programming are available to just about anyone in need. Their offerings are varied and myriad: They offer assistance with High School Equivalency Diploma (HiSET) education and individualized services for students in high school, job placement and career guidance, and financial assistance to complete job training courses or obtaining higher education.

Based within the communities they care for, MY TURN also strives to reduce violence in Manchester through Project Connect, a drop-in center targeting youth from high-crime neighborhoods, which offers incredible structured events like their highly attended basketball tournaments and a free third space for youth to commune, engage, inquire about services or even play Playstation.

Other services range from giving away almost 400 backpacks of brand-new school supplies last year to an all-occasions closet of clothes by its boardroom for anyone in need. MY TURN staff are even known to turn up in the stands of students’ school sports games as a cheering face of support.

Former clients, now MY TURN employees, Reda Shehabeldin and Sethe Shea know that the organization has changed the course of their lives. For them, MY TURN unlocked potential and pathways each man could never have dreamed of. Shehabeldin “had been referred to us when Manchester Police had a grant called Project Safe Neighborhoods,” Joseph says. “It was a multitiered project that tested various data-driven approaches to crime reduction; they did a social network analysis to identify the 13 young adults in the city of Manchester most connected to violent crimes (which includes victims, perpetrators, witnesses and anyone else mentioned in reports of incidents) and he was No. 1.”

“They let me be me. They don’t judge me. They give me room to mess up. Not too many people do that.” — Sethe Shea

Shehabeldin and Shea each had a history of street-based violence dating back into their teenage years and had recently completed criminal sentences when they first met with MY TURN. They had turned to MY TURN for assistance with reintegration after incarceration on the gracious word of friends and neighborhood connections who honored and verified their trusted reputation. Both young men still remained a bit skeptical upon their first meetings with Joseph and the staff.

Joseph was determined to win them over and implemented self-described “sneaky” tactics. She friend-requested both guys and all of their peers on Facebook all at once.

“We were like ‘who is this person that keeps adding all of us?’” Shehabeldin says.

Shea remembers the panic that rippled through their circle. “It was really suspect to be honest,” he says with a laugh. “When she did that, I blocked her at first.”

Over time, each of the young men found themselves drawn back to the organization again and again. Each enjoyed the laid-back, approachable energy put forth by what they found there, and noted that MY TURN proved to be different than any other program or space they’d engaged. Joseph’s heart and solid presence won them over.

“She’s miles beyond everything and anything here,” Shea says. “If Allie wasn’t here, I’m not gonna lie to you, me and him would be having this convo from behind the walls in jail, somewhere. Or I would be dead. For a fact.”

Shehabeldin echoes the sentiment.

Shea finds that his success and career with MY TURN have continually surprised him, both in his incredibly transformational personal growth and his trepidation towards establishing trust in others.

“I never expected to work here,” Shea says. “I didn’t know what this was, who these people were, but my friend was like, ‘Just come mess with these people.’” He reminisces on his mindset and goals as they compare to now. “I was expecting to go out to do the same stuff I was doing before, to be honest. She kind of stopped me in my tracks. She kind of forced my hand to be honest; I’m glad she did. I had a lot of shenanigans in mind.”

Shea says the spirit of the organization makes a big impact on clients through small acts of showing up.

“I didn’t know I could be part of the community in a positive way. It was always negative, you know? Here it’s positive.” – Reda Shehabeldin

“I don’t ask for much. When I first came here, I realized they can help with this or help with that,” he says. “I asked them to get my birth certificate, and they did it mad quick. I think I only asked them one time, and they did it. It’s not like a big deal to regular people, but in my head, I asked one time, and they did it. … It was just something little.”

The breadth of MY TURN’s personalized, wraparound services is found peppered through the testimonies of those they’ve served.

“Before, I couldn’t be in the same room as someone I don’t like,” Shehabeldin says. Now, he’s a role model for others. “I didn’t know I could be part of the community in a positive way. It was always negative, you know? Here it’s positive. I didn’t think in my whole life I was gonna do that.”

MY TURN has also shaped Shehabeldin into a working young professional.

“I never really had a job before this, to be honest with you. Being here taught me how to be an adult,” Shehabeldin says. “I didn’t even know how to send emails or any of that stuff. I didn’t know how to print papers!”

He’s proud of his company email, his own laptop and an unofficial title as the wizard of fixing the office printer. Joseph says Shehabeldin even rubs elbows in board meetings and presentations, where his moving words and friendly nature scored the group $50,000 in funding for adult education programming.

Many individuals leave incarceration set back to square one, without documentation, employment or even a roof over their head. Offering completely
legitimate help free from preconceptions, MY TURN has established lasting, meaningful connections with clients that last a lifetime. Its approach meets clients directly at their personal point of entry and is there as a guiding hand with whatever questions, struggles or roadblocks individuals may face along the journey they choose for themselves, at their own preferred pace.

“They let me be me. They don’t judge me. They give me room to mess up,” Shea says. “Not too many people do that.”

In many ways, MY TURN offers a network of connections to everything one could need help with at their most difficult junctures, from social programming and job placements to housing, health care, and even mentors and social links within communities, steps into place within clients lives to provide the structure, care and assistance typically brought by one’s own families or parents.

For clients like Shehabeldin and Shea, who expressed that their upbringings and influences left little space for positive impact or support, these relationships are crucial.

“The people here, when you want to help, and you’re not doing it for something, it’s different,” Shehabeldin says. “Everybody here cares, you know? To do this line of work, you have to care.”

Shea knows what gives MY TURN the magic touch.

“No program does it like this,” Shea says. “If I had this when I was first jumping off the porch, when I was in like sixth, seventh grade … I probably wouldn’t be here. I just want the
younger kids in the city to utilize it like
I utilized it.”

To their clients, MY TURN’s staff and community are unsung heroes, showing up and standing in support, in often thankless situations. MY TURN’s impact and efficacy within the lives of the people they serve come from the sincerity of all they do. The staff show up for clients, even when they may not want the attention, with dependability, understanding and real-world advice.

This article was featured in 603 Diversity.

603 Diversity’s mission is to educate readers of all backgrounds about the exciting accomplishments and cultural contributions of the state’s diverse communities, as well as the challenges faced and support needed by those communities to continue to grow and thrive in the Granite State.

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