Roger is a former African refugee from a U.N. camp Mtabila, in Tanzania, who was resettled in the US at age 22, with the assistance of the International Rescue Committee, in partnership with the UNHCR United Nations High Commission of Refugees.

While in the camp, Roger helped his fellow Burundian refugees with reading, writing and math, and was considered a great teacher. Currently Roger works night shift as a dishwasher in Seattle to pay back his airfare (one of the conditions of resettlement). This leaves him little time to attend school to improve his English and means he has a tough road ahead of him.

Innocent Ndimubanzi, who is leading the Africans at Microsoft v-team focused on finding ways to empower and enable former African refugees in the Puget Sound region, learned that Roger was engaged to be married to another former African refugee and pulled together a team to help with the wedding. Innocent and his team arranged for transportation, food, drinks, and a social event after the wedding, while Kelly made a wedding cake.

Almost 100 people attended the wedding, in which Roger married his fiancee Anesie, who looked simply elegant in a traditional American wedding dress.  Roger and Anesie exchanged vows in English and Swahili with their rings, and even fed each other wedding cake.  The wedding was great fun and a memorable experience.  The reception food was donated by members of the community who cooked the night before. 

Congratulations to Roger and Anesie on the start of your new lives together! We wish you all the best as you face and conquer the challenges ahead, and we hope you can take advantage of all the opportunities America has to offer!

More about African Refugees in the Puget Sound area:

Several Africans at Microsoft have been reaching out to the former refugees in the Puget Sound area and helping where they can - there is quite a large community of former refugees in the area and they face a number of challenges in assimilating to their new home: transportation, affordable housing, employment and education being among the most pressing.

Resettled refugees like Roger are encouraged to find employment as soon as possible to to pay the aid agencies back for their air tickets to the US, however this often results in the first vicious cycle they have to fight: without strong English language skills they are required to take jobs as unskilled laborers, working difficult shifts that impact their ability to attend community college ESL (English as a Second Language) courses. You can see the catch 22 immediately - without English they can't improve their job prospects, but they can't prioritize English lessons unless they give up work or find a better job...

This is one of the areas that Africans at Microsoft is looking to impact as we partner with appropriate organizations and continue to integrate with the former refugee community. As a result of efforts earlier this year by Kelly Brock, another African at Microsoft, two former refugees (Emmanuel and Meckson) were hired by Microsoft's Dining Services vendor earlier this year and as we move forward we hope to connect more people in the community with employment opportunities like these.

Learn more

• Seattle Government Immigrants and Refugee Initiative
• What does the IRC do in the Seattle area?
• Refugee Council USA
• Raise awareness
• Donate or work for the UNHCR
• Donate or volunteer with IRC (International Rescue Commission) 
• Donate or volunteer with the Refugee Women's Alliance

We will be publishing a series of posts on refugee issues moving forward, as we continue to define and drive outreach and assistance to the community in our area.