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“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
“I’ve always worked in the non-profit world and I’ve always been interested in serving refugees.
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One of the biggest successes I’ve seen (an RST) client achieve is when you first meet them in the airport, they’re so overwhelmed and so tired from the process of just getting to America. Continuing to walk them through that process, after you see them earn a job and their children are enrolled in school, you see the whole transition of these clients becoming confident, successful and integrated.
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It’s very overwhelming when you first go to another country, learning all of the systems in place. That’s what we’re here to help with.”
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Susan, Area Director at Refugee Services of Texas in Austin
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#RST #WelcomeRefugees #StandwithRefugees #buildcommunity #knowyourneighbor #makeadifference #bethechange
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by Jenan Taha