Trainees

Ajax may be the youngest in our youth program, but he carries himself with a calm poise that is direct, open, curious, and charming. He asks questions and looks people in the eye. He’s done his Beautiful Day internship at a local non-profit called Harvest Kitchen where he’s already been promoted to a supervisor role—we’re quite proud of this. Ajax was born in Mozambique where his parents had fled from the war in DR Congo. He grew up speaking Swahili at home and Portuguese at school; once he moved to Providence, he learned Spanish, then English. He remembers his village school being...

Amina was born in Aleppo, Syria. Although there were signs of war during her childhood, Amina felt safe with her family. But when the house next door was hit by a shell, the family fled. They smuggled themselves to Istanbul, Turkey, where her father opened a grocery store. School in Istanbul cost money, so only Amina’s younger siblings were enrolled, and her schooling ended at 4th grade. At 9 she began to work alongside her mother. She was sad, but realized there were other young girls in her situation. Amina came to love Istanbul and thought of it as home....

Marie comes from Masisi, D R Congo, in the foothills of the Virunga Mountains. It is 50 miles from the regional capital, Goma, on the border of Rwanda. Marie has happy childhood memories of playing with friends and singing with a church group. Masisi is known for cheese, and her family owned cows. Marie went to school until the 6th grade when her mother died. After that she was responsible for farming and tending to the cows. She was married at 20, and had 4 children before civil war forced her family to flee. They had to leave their homes in a...

If you’ve been around Beautiful Day these last few years, you’ve probably met Rose or read about her on a previous card. Rose was 5 when her family fled to Tanzania. Her education ended at 5th grade when her school was closed as part of a campaign to get refugees to return to Burundi. She was married at 17, arrived in Rhode Island in 2015, completed our kitchen training program in 2018, and then went through our market training. Rose was deeply impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. When schools went remote, she had to leave a job to care for...

Rodrigo knows he’s good at adapting. Though he was born in the US, he spent his entire life in Guatemala, where he had to move frequently. When his family had to flee the violence last year, he joined an uncle in Rhode Island and the rest of his family followed. Starting at a new high school in a new language as a junior isn’t easy, but Rodrigo also knows it’s full of opportunities. “I could be sad that I don’t know anyone,” he told us. Instead he’s worked on learning and making friends. On the first day of school, his friends took him to meet the football coach, and...

Venance is the third sibling in his family to attend our program. Originally from DR Congo, he grew up in Bangkok where he attended an international school and has memories of good teachers, good friends, and fun going downtown, including to huge malls. It took years after his move to the US at 7 for him to realize he was never going “home.” But Venance doesn’t identify as a resettled refugee. He is now comfortably home in the US. As a sophomore at La Salle Academy he’s a defensive back on the football team, does track, and is a point...