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Moussa finds new home in Tennessee

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Photo courtesy of Josephine Lowery.

Moussa Diallo has left his Homewood home for a new one in Tennessee.

Neal Schier, who serves as his custodian and brought him to Homewood from Senegal in 2013, had long been looking for a permanent home for Moussa. He wanted the boy to be able to stay in Homewood but said it was “a big ask” for families with other children to take him in.

Instead, Schier got in touch with Chick-fil-A’s Winshape Foundation, which is a long-term foster program with homes in Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee. In early May, Moussa was offered a spot at a home in Cleveland, Tennessee. There he will live with six to eight other children and fulltime house parents. Winshape can provide a path to college or career education as Moussa gets older. The foundation can also provide lifelong assisted living if needed, as Moussa still feels the effects of a neurological disorder affecting his muscle movement.

“This is a door that opened up for him,” Schier said, noting that it was still a hard decision to send Moussa there. “It’s going to be difficult for Moussa to make that transition because he was so well accepted in Homewood.”

Schier took him to the Winshape home on May 28. He had asked Moussa to try it out for five weeks, but it was still difficult for Schier to leave him.

“He was patting me on the back, saying, ‘It’s OK,’” Schier said.

The night before he left Homewood, Moussa had dinner at LaBamba in Edgewood with several families who had become close friends. Schier said Homewood families and Homewood City Schools stepped up to help Moussa transition to his home here.

“Moussa was a really nice person,” said Moussa’s friend John Andress, a rising seventh-grader at Homewood Middle School. “He liked sports, like I do, so we were always playing basketball, soccer or football. He has meant very much to us, and to the community of Homewood. I will miss him very much.”

Moussa first came to Homewood at age eight in 2010, several years after Schier had first met him in Senegal. At that time, he received surgery for his eye, a leg brace and physical therapy, and also attended Shades Cahaba Elementary. When Schier was able to bring him back in August 2013, he began a new life living with Schier and attending Shades Cahaba again. In January, Schier won custodianship of Moussa in a court case against his original adoptive caretakers in Senegal, allowing Moussa to remain in the U.S. Schier will retain custodianship while Moussa lives at the group home.

While he will always be part of Moussa’s life, Schier knew he had to eventually return to his home and job in Pennsylvania, and Moussa needed a family who could keep up with an energetic 13-year-old. 

On their drive to home, Moussa was asking Schier about the new house parents. Schier told him that they were in their 30s and younger than him.

Moussa responded: “Oh good, they’ll have lots more energy!”

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