“I speak seven languages and I’m learning number eight. Spanish. I’m Congolese, and I’ve been in the US for four years now. For my first six months, I got help from other refugees. After getting here, my life was really completely changed.”

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“It's really important to help refugees. Whenever I am helping refugees, it's like I'm saving their life. They don’t know anything. But, if you show him or her what to do, (they) can also help other people. That's why I got involved in helping refugees—because I was helped. I'm feeling proud of that.”

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“I’m planning to open my own restaurant and to bring my wife (from Burundi). That is the good news. I can’t do anything without asking her. So I will ask her if we can have a restaurant and it can be African food. You guys are invited!”

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#RST #WelcomeRefugees #StandwithRefugees #donate #LocalChangeonaGlobalLevel

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by Jenan Taha

“Life in Afghanistan is very hard. Every morning when you go to work you are not sure if you’re going to be back home safe. I lost my dad [at] 3 years old. My home was bombed two times. Life was very challenging. That’s why I started working when I [was] eight years old. But when I was working even as a child I had a book in my knees to read and a dream in my mind to follow. I’m very happy that I’m here right now especially so my kids don’t have the same experience—they [have] a bright future.

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I moved here four years ago with my wife and two kids. I have a Special Immigrant Visa from Afghanistan. My hope is for the people to help as much as they can. Becoming a refugee is not always a first choice. They have to start from the beginning. They need community support.”

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#RST #AmplifyATX #WelcomeRefugees #StandwithRefugees #LocalChangeonaGlobalLevel #donatetoday #refugeeswelcome

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by Jenan Taha

“I was born in Congo, raised in Burundi and grew up in America. When we first came we did not speak English at all and we did not know anything about America. My family, we would all go to HEB and we did not have a car, and you would see my whole family of eight, on our way back, carrying the milk on our head like we do in Africa. It was just so bad. We spent a whole two weeks eating food without salt because we didn’t know what salt is! My grandma decided she [knew] how to cook so she was cooking rice and she saw something on the counter and put it in the rice. It was orange and kind of looked like cooking oil. Whenever we were eating it tasted really bad—it was dish soap!

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When you get here, you miss your family a lot. Not every refugee really wants to come here, but because that’s the only choice they have, they come. A lot of refugees are educated—that’s something I want people to know. They really want to learn a lot in their new country.”

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Fille – Resettlement Case Manager at RST

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#RST #WelcomeRefugees #StandwithRefugees #donate #LocalChangeonaGlobalLevel #refugeestories #shareyourstory #givehope #buildcommunity

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by Jenan Taha