Real Resettlement = A Real Job
Resettled refugees in Philadelphia share their experiences landing that first, essential job in the U.S.…and trying to establish careers in the years after.
THE NEWCOMERS
AMIANA ALIAKO, 41 (above)
Home Country: Syria
In the U.S.: 6 months
It didn’t used to be this way, but in 2017, the mere mention of Amiana Aliako’s hometown summons images of shelled apartment buildings, disrupted lives, and despair. Aliako is from Aleppo. She fled Syria with her husband and four children, spending five years in a small apartment in Instanbul before the entire family was accepted to the U.S. Refugee Resettlement program. She’s been in Philadelphia for 6 months now, and has learned enough English to hold down a job cleaning up after the public in the city’s most famous food hall, Reading Terminal Market.
“All those toilets,” said Aliako, who is the family’s only breadwinner right now because her husband, who was injured in Syria, is blind in one eye. “I’ll do anything else. Anything.”
NAEEM AHMAD, 45
Home Country: Pakistan
Time in U.S.: 45 days
Naeem Ahman is one of Philadelphia’s most recently-resettled refugees, arriving just before the U.S. ban took effect this summer. He fled religious persecution in Pakistan, where he’d previously enjoyed “a luxurious life” as a general manager of a food research facility, specializing in food safety and quality control.
Settled now in West Philadelphia — and sadly, separated from his family — he is enrolled in ESL classes and studying hard. He has 80 more days to find a job. “I am greatly ambitious,” said Ahmad.
ABDUL AMARA, 37
Home Country: Sierra Leone
Time in U.S.: 5 months
A math whiz as a child, Abdul Amara has never lost interest in learning. Though he was forced to leave Sierra Leone right after graduating from high school because of a sudden civil war, Amara sought out math tutors in every city where his family took refuge. After finally landing in a UNHCR camp in Ghana, Amara applied for university scholarships three years in a row, never understanding why he was rejected. The fourth application took, and Amara was able to earn not one but two technology degrees while in Ghana.
Now resettled in Philadelphia through the U.S Refugee program, Amara has benefitted from a new initiative to consider qualified refugee candidates for tech positions at WebLinc, an e-commerce company in Philly. Amara was hired as an IT intern, but quickly transferred to their front-end development team because, as he says, “I want to learn more, front-end and then back-end and then management.”
THE LONG-TIMERS
NARAD SUBEDI, 28
Home Country: Kingdom of Bhutan
In the U.S.: 10 years
Only 4 years old when his family was forced out of the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan, Narad Subedi spent most of his childhood at a refugee camp in Nepal. His parents, who’d been successful farmers in their homeland, had a tiny plot of vegetables at the camp. When the family was finally granted admittance to the U.S., they became active volunteer community gardeners in Northeast Philadelphia, stunning their new neighbors with corn stalks 20 feet high.
Subedi, who is now married with two sons, spent 6 years working odd jobs while he perfected his English. Four years ago, he trained to become a home health aide, and has excelled as a daily caregiver to a middle-aged man who is suffering from a form of brain cancer. “I’m not leaving him,” says Subedi. “He loves me and I love him too.” Still, Subedi dreams of a career in a field that he says is simply in his blood: agriculture.
SAYMU GENEYAN-SACKOR, 45 + JOSEPH SACKOR, 48 (below)
Home Country: Liberia
Time in U.S.: 18 years
Saymu Geneyan and Joseph Sackor were both college students when war broke out in their native Liberia. “We never crossed paths in those days, though,” said Sackor. Remarkably, the two met at the Nona refugee camp in Guinea, and decided that they were meant to build a new life together. Geneyan was admitted to the U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program first, and the two were separated for three years, until Sackor was also admitted.
Sackor’s first months in the U.S. were difficult. He landed a job working in a factory assembling coolers, but getting to that factory required long bus trips, and after a few late buses, Sackor was fired. Today, nearly 20 years later, he is grateful he moved on. Sackor currently holds two bachelors degrees and two masters degrees. He works as a Senior Systems Analyst at a hospital in Pennsylvania, where he and Geneyan own a home and are raising their 4, American-born children.
