Trainees

We’ve felt lucky to be working with Selemani through the disruption of our recent move. He’s adept at maneuvering large freezers and ovens on and off Uhauls and into tight spaces. He arrived in the US in 2017. As a widower and single parent of 4, he faces some unique challenges: one son is deaf (now attending RI School for the Deaf), one daughter is being treated for sickle cell anemia. The age gaps between his children require multiple schools and multiple trips to the bus stop. Finding the right employment has proved challenging. Selemani lost both his parents back in...

Like several of the youth in our current job training cohort, Daniel is ethnically Kunama. Originally his family is from Eritrea, although he was born in Ethiopia. He’s very chill with a sly sense of humor that the whole cohort appreciates. That time of leaving Ethiopia is a bit of a blur—he was around 7 or 8 and remembered being confused about where they were going. He arrived in Providence with his mom and younger brother and started school with his cousin Hayle (also in this cohort). Daniel did not feel like he was treated differently because he was from...

Dahaba was born in the village of Whenehebe, where her family stayed on their way from Eritrea to the Shemelba camp in Ethiopia. (This camp is in the Tigray region, where there is currently significant unrest.) She was resettled in Providence along with her siblings, aunt, and grandmother. If you’ve seen the documentary called Home Across Lands, then you’ve already met Dahaba’s 5-year-old self! Dahaba loves her life in America but also recognizes that we are surrounded by myths. She questions the American Dream because she sees members of her family working terribly hard but not ‘getting ahead.’ Yet, she also...

Mauwa grew up in a camp in Tanzania where her parents and grandmother had fled from the DR Congo. While she has fond memories of cousins and special games in the camp, she also experienced the loss of her mother to illness and her grandmother who chose to return to DRC rather than resettlement. Mauwa arrived in RI, speaking no English, in February 2016 along with her 7 siblings, father and step-mother. She is now 16, attends the RI Nurses Charter School and considers the loss of her mother as her inspiration to become a nurse and help those who...

Bienfait, whose parents fled DR Congo, was born in Tanzania, but grew up in Burundi where his parents fled when he was a toddler. Like so many of the youth we’ve worked with, he treasures memories of playing outside with many friends: soccer with bare feet, kites, fun at a big lake, frogs jumping! And yes, it was sunny all the time! Resettling to Rhode Island when he was 9 involved adjusting expectations. He’d been told it was “the best place in the world.” But third grade without knowing English is hard. A tiny apartment for a family of 7...

At 16, Hayle is the youngest in our new cohort of youth trainees. He arrived in the US from Ethiopia when he was 2, so all his childhood memories are from right here. Still history and culture are important to him and he continues to learn Kunama, an ancient indigenous language of Eritrea. Hayle’s energy reaches straight through a computer screen—a mixture of respect, kindness, and eagerness to understand this moment in history. He’s been learning about civil rights and black history in school. Despite his own family’s long journey to “The Land of the Free,” they have encountered police...