Sifa came to the United States in January 2025.  After years of waiting in a refugee camp, she and her family learned that their resettlement was approved! They were thrilled to have the opportunity to come to the United States. Sifa arrived in Indiana this January, and her family was supposed to arrive just a […]

Navigating life in the United States as a newly arrived refugee can be daunting and uncertain—but it can also instill renewed hope for the future and healing from the past. Justine embodies the notion of not only starting from scratch but also cultivating something new. She grew up in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where […]

Meet Hassan, Hassan grew up in Afghanistan, where as a child, he was not allowed to attend school. His family needed him to work to help support them. He learned English by watching other children complete their homework. Eventually, he started doing their homework assignments with them in the evenings! He never let go of […]

Henry is a refugee from Burma who arrived at the United States at the beginning of 2011 when he was 16. His dad had been involved in the 1988 protests against the government, and his whole family came to the United States as political refugees. Henry experienced a huge culture shock when coming to the […]

AJ is a refugee from Iraq who came to the United States at the end of 2023. AJ waited nearly 10 years to come to Indiana, and since he has arrived he has been “having the best time of his life.” “Exodus has helped me from the moment they picked me up at the airport, […]

Five years ago, Luis and his wife made the difficult decision to flee Cuba and seek safety in the United States. They were in the process of coming to the United States when the COVID pandemic broke out, adding extra uncertainty to their journey. In 2021, they received humanitarian parole status and came to Indianapolis […]

Claudia is a refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). She moved to Indiana in 2022 with her two adult sons to seek a better life for her family. Claudia fled the DRC in 1996 with her two sons and lived in a refugee camp in Tanzania for 26 years before moving to […]

Sagheera is a refugee from Syria and came with her husband and 2 children to seek a brighter and safer future for her family. Sagheera and her family waited 9 years in a refugee camp before they were able to come to the United States in Spring 2022. They originally been told they would be […]

Faeiza was evacuated from Afghanistan in 2021 after the fall of Kabul. Education has always been important to Faeiza. Despite support from her family, Faeiza had to leave Afghanistan to be able to earn an undergraduate degree. After she left the country, the Taliban began sending threats to her family. They were angry that her […]

When Aisha immigrated to the United States from the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2020, she was a pregnant single mother with one child. Unfortunately, she didn’t experience America the way she had anticipated. Due to limited resources, the agency that welcomed her could only provide her with rental assistance for two months. She would […]

Justin is a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo, but he was born and raised in a refugee camp in Rwanda, where his family lived for almost 20 years. He has 2 sisters and 4 brothers, one of whom is still in Rwanda.   Justin and his family arrived in the U.S. in Fall 2021. […]

Each refugee who arrives here has their own story of strength and resilience, much like Hagir. She grew up in Darfur, where since 2003 there has been growing political tension and unrest. In Sudan, she started her journey as a human rights activist, working to help educate women about how to care for themselves during […]

Anifa is from the Democratic Republic of Congo. When she was 12 years old, she and her family fled to a refugee camp in Zambia. She lived there for about 15 years before she was resettled in the United States in 2022. She came to Indiana because her husband had been resettled here in 2018, […]

N and his family had to flee Afghanistan during the evacuation in August 2021.  As the Taliban advanced, they were searching for people who had worked with the United States military—and N had worked with the military for years.  If he stayed in the country he knew that not only would he be in danger, […]

Agappe was born and raised in the town of Masisi, in southern end of the Nord-Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo until 2008, when fighting broke out in Nord-Kivu. His mother led her family out of the warzone on a bus to Kampala, Uganda. They stayed in a refugee camp on the edge of the city for a few months before continuing onward to Nairobi, Kenya. Agappe’s…

Baydaa and her husband lived in Falujar, Iraq. Baydaa owned her own salon and her husband Haitham was an accountant. “I had a family, and I used to work. We had everything we needed.” That all changed when violence occurred in Falujar that lead to an ongoing war in Iraq. “We went 120 days without […]

Meet Claudia Cilien Pierre. Claudia is 35 years old, and she is originally from Haiti. She lives in Lawrence Township with her husband John Ptensly, and two kids ages 3 and 2 years old. She studied in Haiti and received a science degree. “I sometimes used to go to university hungry. It wasn’t easy.” Now, […]

When Esmael Borhani arrived in the United States in February 2020 with his wife, Anisa, and their two young children, they were unprepared for the frigid temperatures and heavy snow that greeted them. They owned only lightweight clothing after nearly five years spent as refugees in Sri Lanka, waiting to be resettled after fleeing war […]

Fikiri is a refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. You may recognize his story from the IndyStar. Since Christmas, Fikiri has been extremely busy. As a single father, he is raising his three children, while working the night shift on the weekends so he can be actively involved in his children’s lives, his […]

Heba’s parents fled violence in Somalia before she was born. She was raised in Kuwait along with her two brothers and sister who were educated and worked in Kuwait before coming to the United States. Heba studied to become a nurse. Yet, like many stateless people, Heba’s family worried that at any moment, their host […]

Helene was only two years old when her parents and five-year-old brother fled violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2002. She grew up in a town called Bujumbura in Burundi. Although Helene and her family did not live in a refugee camp, they still faced many struggles living in a country that […]

Marcel fled his home in Abidgan, Ivory Coast in 2011 due to a military conflict that led to a civil war. He spent eight years in Avi Pozo Refugee Camp in Lomé, Togo with his daughter and two grandkids, ages 12 and 15 years old. “Before the war, there was peace. There was joy. We […]

Mohamed vividly remembers the moment he landed at the John F Kennedy Airport in New York City. It was a cold, crisp winter afternoon in December of 2010. He was nineteen years old. The beautiful landscapes of America that he had so long heard of and imagined were covered by white snow, and three jackets weren’t enough to prevent him from shivering. “Everything was foreign—I remember trying to speak a…

Mohammed Alhamwi never thought he would have to flee his home. His family ran a prosperous business making purses in Damascus, Syria, and he was a typical 18-year-old. He had a job, a car, and a plan to earn a certificate in technology and open his own cell phone business. All of that was upended […]

Tesfai was born to a family of farmers in a village called Bietgebriel in Eritrea in 1987. He came from an ordinary family with parents who wanted nothing more than a good education and opportunity for their five children. Sadly, Tesfai’s father passed away when he was 13 years old, but he worked hard in […]

Riem is from Latakia, a major port city in Syria, and one of the last cities largely under government control at the time she lived there. “Since 2011, I had two suitcases packed, and if anything happened, I would take them and leave with my kids,” Riem said. At first, she would travel back and forth from […]

Nduwimana Sada Nahayo lived all her life in North Kivu, a province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, one of the most violent areas during the Second Congo War and the Kivu Conflict. Sada doesn’t like to talk about or even remember the trauma she experienced and witnessed back in her country. “Innocent people die every day without knowing what’s going on.”