Home Town Hero

Local woman named as one of
CNN Top Ten national heroes

Najah Bazzy

The founder of a local charity that helps single women and children facing poverty and despair has been named as one of the Top Ten CNN Heroes of the year.
Najah Bazzy,  CEO of Zaman International, an Inkster-based nonprofit organization that provides services to single women and children, is now one of the candidates for the top honor and Voting for the Hero of the Year will continue through Tuesday, Dec. 3. Individuals can vote 10 times a day, every day for the hero they believe is most deserving of the national honor.

Zaman International, under Bazzy's leadership, helps families struggling to raise kids, take care of dying parents, family members or simply join the workforce to lift themselves out of poverty and find hope.
According to the CNN website, back in 1996, Bazzy, a registered nurse specializing in transcultural issues, was working at the old Oakwood Hospital and Medical Center in Dearborn, now Beaumont Dearborn.
There was an Iraqi family who had already lost one of their two baby twins in the hospital neonatal ICU. Administrators and doctors had determined the second twin could not be saved and wanted to withdraw ventilator and feeding support. The family objected.
Bazzy became their de facto advocate. In a subsequent medical ethics hearing, she was able to negotiate a way for the baby to go home with a ventilator and feeding tubes. But when she went to the home for a visit she was shocked at what she encountered.
“The home was bare. There was only carpet on the floor, where all the family members slept. They brought the baby to me in a laundry basket for a crib,” said Bazzy.
“I was shocked. I had not seen such poverty in the community,” said Bazzy, who grew up in the lower income area of South Dearborn, the daughter of a U.S. Army Korean War veteran. “We didn't have much but we didn't know it at the time. This was different.”
Bazzy went home and told her mother to gather up all of the extra furniture, pots, pans and appliances they could spare. They loaded everything into a truck and delivered it to the family. “They were overwhelmed with gratitude,” she said. “We started it out that way.”
That was the beginning of what is now Zaman International.
“We give people their dignity back. We call it 'one-stop hope,'” said Bazzy, who is CEO, chief fundraiser and traveling minister for preventive care and medical education.
From 1996 to 2010, Bazzy and her family worked out of their home, rented out trucks, picked up donated furniture, housing items, food and clothing and delivered it to needy families with income less than $12,000 in metro Detroit.
Originally founded as Bayt Al Zahra, which is Arabic for house of hope and light, Bazzy changed the name to Zaman in 2004 when it became an non-governmental organization and 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization.
“We couldn't keep up with demand and needed to expand,” she said.
In 2016, Zaman moved to a new 40,500 square-foot building at 26091 Trowbridge St. The Hope For Humanity Center building has eight times more space as the previous locations.
Supported by donors, more than 450 community partner organizations and 6,000 volunteers, Zaman serves more than 25,000 people in metro Detroit and 22 communities. The agency started out serving Iraqi refugees, but now serves Syrian and many needy single women and children.
Zaman's outreach initiatives now include crisis assistance, infant burial, literacy and job skills training, international and domestic orphan sponsorship, a summer meals program for members, disaster relief partnerships, a resale shop and a Gleaners-affiliated food pantry.
Zaman also offers vocational training and tutoring to show clients they can do more if they try.
“Some women have adjusted to this life. They shouldn't settle. We are focusing on women with children who really have a dream. We can help them manage the goals they set. It takes a lot of energy to set goals, but we see them improving and we encourage them. We restore hope,” Bazzy said.
While Zaman has no exact statistics, Bazzy estimated that about 45 percent of the women who seek help at the agency use the vocational and educational services.
This year, Bazzy wants to begin raising funds to open a preventive health clinic by 2021. She hopes to work with medical partners to support having two medical students and possibly residents and professional medical volunteers to staff the two- or three-day-a-week clinic.
“Prevention is very important because poverty really affects your health - obesity, depression,” she said. “We hope to get the program started this year and maybe open in three years.”
Over the next two years, Bazzy said she wants to add child care and transportation programs.
Bazzy said she started out with dreams of becoming a doctor, as her brother had muscular dystrophy and she learned at an early age about disabilities. She took the nursing career path but still views her work with Zaman as preventive health.
In keeping with her teaching passion, Bazzy travels around Detroit and the country to give speeches and offer training on how to integrate culturally competent and spiritually sensitive care.
She also works with medical and nursing students, social workers, chaplains, hospices and executives at hospitals around the country.
To vote for Bazzy or one of the other nominated heroes, visit the CNN Heroes website.