Philemon was born in DR Congo in 2001 and learned Swahili as his primary language. When he was 12, he moved to a refugee camp in Tanzania with his family. As the youngest of 9 siblings, he was able to attend both elementary and secondary school.
At 15, he started his first job as a motorcycle taxi driver. During this time, he learned a lot about the mechanics of motorcycles and how to fix them. He clearly loves machines and mechanics of all sorts, including things like our packing and sealing equipment.
Philemon and his family arrived in Tallahassee, Florida in 2023. He remembers the heat! His family didn’t feel especially safe where they were living, so they made their way up to Rhode Island. He found Beautiful Day soon after and began our 4-month job training program. His younger sister enrolled in our youth program as well.
Here at Beautiful Day, Philemon has become comfortable in all aspects of granola and hummus production including operating commercial kitchen and packing equipment, following instructions, preparing orders and gifts for distribution, and even writing notes in English with clear penmanship.
Philemon will graduate in a couple weeks. His goal after finishing our training program is to find a job where he can continue to learn about and work with machines.
