Growing up in a refugee camp, daily, she was reminded she was a refugee. Going to and from the camp she had to show her ID. Her family didn’t have to live in the camp, but like many other refugee families, they couldn’t afford to live outside the camp. Within the camp it was very insecure - physical and armed clashes, Lebanese vs refugees and Palestinians vs Palestinians. It was a harsh reality for a young girl and for the many refugee children who lived in that environment. However, Hourie reasoned that if she did her part, by pursuing her education as far as she could, if things didn’t work out, it wouldn’t be for lack of trying. It wouldn’t be her fault.
Transcript: A Conversation with Hourie Tafech
Accentuate! Podcast
Host: Rhonda Gardner
Guest: Hourie Tafech
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and readability. Filler, repetition, and recording logistics have been removed while preserving the conversation and the speakers’ perspectives. References to research, policies, population estimates, organizations, and personal circumstances reflect the time of the interview. Hourie describes completing her PhD in May 2022. Bracketed notes identify wording requiring confirmation against the audio.
Introducing Hourie
Rhonda: Hello everyone. This is the Accentuate! Podcast, amplifying the voices of immigrants and refugees for success in the workplace. I'm Rhonda Gardner, the host, an immigrant from Trinidad and Tobago living in the US. Today my guest is Hourie Tafech. We don't know each other, but I found her on LinkedIn, asked her to interview and share her story and she agreed. So today she'll be letting us know a little about her background and her experiences in the workplace. Hourie, thank you so much for meeting with me. Go ahead and introduce yourself.
Hourie: Sure, thank you. Thank you, Rhonda. It's nice to be here. Talking about myself, as you mentioned, I was born and raised as a Palestinian refugee in Lebanon. I spent maybe the first over 20 years of my life in a camp for Palestinian refugee in Lebanon. In Lebanon, I finished my bachelor’s degree in graphic design. Then I moved to Malta. I got married at that time, and I moved to Malta. In Malta, I studied again marketing as an undergrad. And I co-founded Spark 15, which is a refugee-led organization, the first refugee-led organization recognized by United Nations in the EU. As part of my work for Spark 15, I got to meet the Dean of the Graduate School of Rutgers University.
He was in [location unclear in the supplied transcript] at that time, doing research about refugees and migration, and he invited me to the US. I visited the US for the first time in April 2017. I gave a talk about what we do at Spark 15, my activism and advocacy work in the EU. After that, he said, why don't you apply for scholarship or a fellowship to do your PhD at Rutgers? Because he had talked to the chancellor and they think I'm a good candidate. At that time, to be honest, I had no clue what a PhD application involved because I never thought I would do one. When he said I would have to get him a personal statement and a research statement, I asked, “What is that?”
It was very specific to the US, and I had no clue what it looked like. But thank God at that time I had a friend of mine who helped me prepare my application. He also said I should submit good recommendation letters. I said, “What about the president of Malta?” Because during my work with Spark 15, I had some connection with the president, with the ambassador, the US ambassador in Malta, because we were working on some common projects. He said, “If you can do so, that would be great.” So yeah, that was like my first recommendation letter from the president of Malta and the second one from the US ambassador, which really helped my application. I applied. And I started my PhD program in September 2017. And I just finished last May 2022.
Researching refugee economic inclusion and entrepreneurship
Rhonda: So what was your PhD in?
Hourie: My PhD was in global affairs. I did my master's in global affairs, PhD in global affairs, but during my master's and PhD, my focus was always on immigration and refugee studies. And my actual dissertation was on refugee economic inclusion and entrepreneurship in the US cities. So I looked at the factors that impact their economic inclusion and entrepreneurship level across cities in the US.
Rhonda: Can you talk to me a little about that? Because I'm really curious about that, even as I do this, I'm starting off a project. So talk to me a little about that.
Hourie: So I like my first proposal was about refugee entrepreneurship in camps in the Middle East. But then COVID hit and I couldn't travel. I had to change it to adapt it and I chose to go with the refugee communities in the US cities. I planned to travel to five cities across the US. It was five at the beginning, then I went with four: Salt Lake City, Utah; Houston, Texas; Utica, New York; and St. Louis, Missouri. I chose cities that were resettlement sites, with different sizes and locations. [A brief explanation of the research variables is unclear.] And I went there and interviewed refugees, resettlement agencies, a non-profit that deal with refugees. I interviewed [the number and breakdown of interview participants are unclear in the supplied transcript].
I asked why they decided to open a business, what factors impacted the business, and other questions. I arrived at a graph of different factors that impact refugee entrepreneurship in the city. Some might apply in one context. Not all of them would apply in other contexts. Let’s start with sociocultural factors. Like if there is enough ethnic communities around, that sometimes encourage them to open businesses because basically refugees who try, not all of them, but a good percentage who open businesses are the one who are trying to escape low-end jobs. Yeah, Because basically when they arrive to the US, they have 90 days to be self-sufficient.
And during this 90 days, they just accept any job offer they have without having the language skills or without being able to do like the recognition of their credentials if they have some. So they accept any job offer to become self-sufficient, which most of the time are low-end jobs, physical jobs that takes like 15 hours a day. Sometimes they have to work two and three jobs. So after five, 7, 10 years, they find themselves, they're still within the same circle, working long hours. They didn't even learn the language because they're not interacting with people. They're missing time with their families. Their spouses, a lot of the time they are working too, or their partners. So they decide to break the cycle. Some of them had not gained the skills to do a better job.
So they decide to open businesses or to use business skills that they had before they come to the US. And this is basically why they decide to open business. And when they want to open business, like we see around that a lot of refugees or migrants have ethnic businesses and we think this is by choice. That is not to say none of them choose it. Some of them, they open an ethnic business by choice, but others, they found themselves like a bit of force to open ethnic businesses because they don't interact or they don't know the language to interact with non-ethnic consumers. So they limit themselves to their ethnic community. But a lot of them whom I interviewed, they said, we wish that we could tap into
the American consumers, not only the ethnic consumers, because all of the time the ethnic consumers are not enough to run a very successful business. It's a business that is like surviving, not thriving, we can say, because we are depending on on like ethnic communities which are not doing very well financially. So the business also like struggles a bit. It's different when you tap into the American market. And also, because they start with very little money, most of the time, they also go very slow, very small. And I found too that, I mean, this might not have been very common, but what I found also, the way they decorate their businesses. The way they shape the business, it is very ethnic that might sometimes might not appeal to non-ethnic consumers. For example, some had food stores.
Some restaurant owners would say, “We don’t rely on our ethnic community. They don’t eat out. We rely on American customers.” For others with ethnic grocery stores, I would say, “You can shape your place as an international food store and attract American customers. You may need to label and arrange things differently, so it doesn’t look exactly like a store back home, because stores here look different.” So I found this is an issue of like the marketing of the space itself. how it looks, the marketing, the customer service. Sometimes it's just not up to the American standards or the American expectations. The entrepreneurs themselves said it: “It took us time to learn how to do it the American way and adapt.” So yeah, there were a lot of interesting findings.
The time and tools needed for self sufficiency
Rhonda: Based on what you're saying, it sounds as if they have 90 days to get themselves sustainable, but it doesn't seem to have a lot of support in terms of how to acclimatize to the culture to be like self-sufficient. Would you agree?
Hourie: Yeah, for sure. The resettlement system in the US encourages, or requires, refugees to be self-sufficient. But the most important thing is, do you provide the tools for them to be self-sufficient within the first 90 days? Yes, the resettlement agencies, are doing a great job. We cannot say, they are not. They offer English language courses and skills building, but 90 days is not enough for the agencies or the refugees. We cannot blame one side. This is how the resettlement system works, and it has been there since 1980. So it needs some changes.
Growing up in a refugee camp in Lebanon
Rhonda: Talk to me about your experience, if you don't mind sharing. You don't have to share anything that you're not comfortable sharing. But what was your experience like being born in a refugee camp and then growing up and how did you get out? what skills did you use? What lessons did you take away from that experience? Could you share a little about that?
Hourie: Going back to my life in the camp, when you live in the camp, you don’t really think much about what is going on outside. Growing up in the camp, I didn't like it for sure. I didn't feel like I belonged there. We can live as Palestinian in Lebanon. You can have the choice to live outside. It's not like you have to live inside the camp. But is it, can you afford to live outside the camp? This is the main question. When I was young, my dad had a shoe repair shop. And whatever he was making, it was not enough to afford living outside the camp. So we were obliged to stay in the camp. At that time, there were about 11 camps for Palestinians in Lebanon.
The one I was in, it was more in the south. It's called [camp name missing from the supplied transcript]. It's very insecure in many different levels, starting from physical insecurity because there is a lot of armed clashes. At that time, it was like weekly, monthly, and it was mainly between like inter-Palestinian groups inside the camp. They would fight with each other or between some groups and the Lebanese army. So we had this army, Lebanese army checkpoints all around the camp. As a Palestinian, you were allowed in, but people who were not Palestinian or Lebanese needed a permit to enter, because the government was not responsible for anyone’s security inside the camp. So yeah, it was a harsh reality.
I attended primary and secondary school at the UNRWA schools inside the camp, United Nations schools run by the agency responsible for Palestinian refugees. For Palestinian refugees, it has nothing to do with UNHCR. UNHCR is responsible for all refugees in the world except Palestinian.
Rhonda: Why is that?
Hourie: Growing up was tough because we were reminded daily that we were refugees. Even when leaving or entering the camp, you had to show your ID to show you were Palestinian. There were also wanted people around, So they have to make sure you are not one of them. The UNRWA schools are essential in our lives. It's really essential because without it, like we couldn't really have free access to education. But it's still facing a lot of deficits. And the education there is just, the standards are not up to, let's say, the very high quality standards. But I also think that they're doing their best in terms of what they have of resources.
Pursuing education despite restrictions
Hourie: After high school, as Palestinians in Lebanon, we could not practice 36 professions. So it is kind of like you are going to the university and you know you're not going to find a job after that. That’s why a lot of people drop out. They ask, “What’s the point of doing this?” My brother is one of them. My brother dropped out at 15, and we did all we could to convince him to stay. Because for us, it was maybe if we get an education, you can leave the camp, you can just do something in your life. For him, it was, “Don’t you see the engineers and doctors around? They’re selling vegetables. Why do I have to do this?” For him, there was no point.
For me, it was more of I do my part and I get education. If it doesn't work, then I don't feel guilty that it might have been my fault that I didn't do it.
Finding a way to university
Hourie: But also going to a university is not easy because it's very expensive. And private universities, also we couldn't afford it. For me, going to university was another story. When I finished high school, my dad suggested UNRWA vocational training, where they train teachers to teach at UNRWA schools. My sister had done that. He said, “You can do this.” I said, “But I don’t want to be a teacher.” He said, “But I cannot afford for you to go to college.” At that time I wanted to study architecture, but the programs I was considering were out of my budget. [University names are unclear in the supplied transcript.] One day, my mom could see I was really sad about this. She said, “Just go and start, and we’ll see what we can do.”
But I remember I was at my aunt’s and it was like the registration period. And I had a dream that I get a scholarship, but I lost it because I didn't have an application in, which doesn't make sense. You cannot get the scholarship, didn't have application. But this is how the dream was. I said, “I’m going to apply today.” And I remember I left my aunt and I went to the college. I wanted something to do with an architect. At the Lebanese International University, they said, “We don’t have that, but we have interior design.” I asked, “What is interior design?” I looked at it and thought, “This is going to be an assistant to the architect. I don’t want to be an assistant to the architect.”
So I found the graphic design option, which I didn't know much about. At that time, I put in the application. It looked interesting, and I also applied for a scholarship from UNRWA. The first year, I didn’t hear back about the scholarship. I had the whole family helping me, all my relatives living abroad sending money. Like my mom, she had some money, yeah, it was literally like my uncle, my aunt, my aunt, everyone. And we paid for the first year. During my finals, my dad asked, “So now what? The first year is over. What are you going to do for the other two or three years?” I said, “So what? Should I drop out?” He said, “I told you from day one I didn’t have the money for that. You chose this.”
Two days after that, I received a call from UNRWA saying I had received a scholarship. It was a year late. They paid me back what I paid for the first year. So like I sent my uncle back his money, my aunt. I was so happy. But the scholarship had a condition: I had to finish my bachelor’s in three years. I said, “It’s fine. I can do this.” So, but yeah, that's why my bachelor just took me three years from 2009 till 2012. And this is how I got my bachelor. After that, it was also hard to find a job. My dad was very protective. He didn't want me to go to another city just to stay within the South. And it was really hard to work also as Palestinian.
So it's all kind of different types of struggles all the way. I like if I go back, it's all it's always, you are just trying to navigate the problems at different period of time. But I still consider myself lucky. that I was able to navigate them, because sometimes it's just even like if you want to really navigate them, you can't because your refugee status is just like holding a lot of restrictions on what you can do or even what you can think.
Inclusion and exclusion in Lebanon
Rhonda: I love that story. That's a beautiful story. And it really does take resilience. And I think What I've, the few people I've spoken to so far, I think that has been a consistent theme, with immigrants, refugees, is that resilience, because there's always something that's restricting you, that's telling you, no, that you have to kind of overcome, you have to find a way to overcome it. So there are two things I'm really interested about in terms of what you said so far. And the first one, part of your thesis was about inclusion. Could you talk to me a little about inclusion in the workplace, inclusion of refugees? What have you experienced yourself in your own process, your own journey? What have you heard from others? So just talk to me about what you've learned.
Hourie: Okay, so when it comes to inclusion, I like have three different experiences based on the countries that I lived in. if we have to start from Lebanon, as Palestinian refugee here, we have been here for 74 years now. My parents were born in Lebanon. So I'm a I'm a third generation refugees. My nephews are a fourth generation Palestinian refugees. And what I can say is they are still not fully integrated. They're still in that part, like in a way, not part of the Lebanese society. And I can relate this to the main aspect of the political, the political, the complex political environment in Lebanon. where we have a lot of sectors in terms of religious sects. Palestinians are mainly Sunni Muslims. There are also Christian and Shia Palestinians in Lebanon, but mainly Sunni.
And if they're going to in any way give us like a citizenship, that means we're going to have some sort of disbalance. between Sunni and Shia in Lebanon and that won't work. And the second one is the Lebanese policy towards Palestinian. It's meant to not integrate Palestinians because in their mind was if they don't live a good life, they won't like it here and they're going to go back. This is literally what they say. We asked, “Why can’t we work?” The answer was, “Because if you live a comfortable life, you won’t go back.” That is not how it should be, but that is the logic behind it.
So when you create a policy that would not allow Palestinian to work or would not, like just 10% to go to Lebanese public school and they cannot, they cannot actually also own any properties or so there's a lot of restrictions. You are disintegrating people, not integrating. And when you try to isolate a population and just put them in camps, I don't know, what do you expect out of this? It won't be good results, not for the Lebanese society, nor for the Palestinian. That won't bring anything positive. And that's exactly what happened in Lebanon. The policies that isolate and disintegrate, created these camps where they become, at certain point, a very dangerous threat to the, as they call it, to the national security. But this is also Lebanese-made problem, the way they handled the Palestinian refugee.
And also, I don't want to have to dismiss one point that back in the 1980s, during the Lebanese Civil War, there were also some, like the PLO, the Palestine Liberation Organization, which was also, they took part in the Civil War, and that was very wrong. Every time we ask, “What’s going on? How can we keep living in this situation?” we get reminded, “Have you forgotten what you did in the civil war?” I say, “It wasn’t us. It was 40 years ago.” Those armed groups who were involved left Lebanon at that time, and we have already paid enough for what they did. And already, like thousands of Palestinians get killed during the camps war or during Sabra and Shatila. So like there's a lot of force that happened that we already paid enough for that.
So you cannot keep reminding us 40 years ago what the other group did. So this is part of the integration in Lebanon. I feel yeah, it is not there in any level, except when the Syrian war started. And we started to have Syrian refugees in Lebanon. Now we have like Lebanese, Palestinian and Syrian. Palestinian refugees are like not more than 200,000. Syrian refugees might be up to 2 million. The registered are 1 million and 200,000 and we're talking about like just 4 million Lebanese. So we have half Syrian. Now, when some Lebanese see a Palestinian, they say, “But you are Palestinian. The Syrians now are causing the troubles.” I start thinking about what our grandparents went through back in 1948. I think, “Okay. For 70 years, you were blaming Palestinians for whatever happened in Lebanon,
but now you are blaming Syrians.” Now perhaps we can take a break from being blamed. But I feel bad for the Syrian refugees because they have to go through this. But at the same time, I see how it is like now because we have a new refugees. I’ve heard many Lebanese say, “You’re Palestinian. You’re one of us.” But that was not the case before the Syrian refugees came. We were not one of you. Yeah, so I was yeah, that's very interesting. The last time I had this conversation, someone said, “But you’re Palestinian and were born here. We have the same culture.” And he was trying to make a point that we're the same, but the Syrians are not. I said, “But this wasn’t the case a few years ago.
We weren’t the same, and we were the ones being blamed.” So it's very interesting.
Navigating difference in Malta
Hourie: When I moved to Malta, it was not easy at all. In Malta, I was on a student visa. I still have my refugee document, but at that time I had a student residency. The added struggle in Malta was being Muslim in a very Catholic country. So it was more like not only the legal aspect of being a refugee, but also being hijabi Muslim in a non-Muslim country. At the beginning, I couldn’t really take it. It was too much to handle because you felt everyone was looking at you. At that time, Malta, they didn't have any integration policy because it was dealt with as just a transit country where refugees are coming in and they get resettled or they move. Like between 2002 and 2014,
they have over 20,000 refugees arrived to Malta by boats, a lot of them, but only 6,000 were left in Malta by 2014, 2015. So it is not like a country to stay. The whole time I was in Malta, they were working on an integration policy. Spark 15, my organization, was also at the policy table in the final rounds to try to shape it. When we arrived to 2017, when the Trump administration took over and resettlement was stopped completely, this is when Malta felt the urge to just do something about the integration policy, because people are staying now. They're not leaving. And I remember maybe the integration policy were published in 2018. It is still not very applied, like it's not applied much in Malta.
As I can see, the situation there also is not the best. People face all different kinds of racism. The detention centers were not the best either. And Malta, I think just the Maltese people somehow of they fear anything different in terms of how they look or it's just like religion, it's just anything different. I don't know. With time, I got used to it. I don’t know if it got better or I got better at handling it. But I think it's, I get better because I start not noticing like if somebody is looking at me in a certain way or somebody doesn't like me, I just don't care. I reached the point of thinking, “Okay, whatever.” As long as you don't like disrespect me, you're just free to think whatever you want.
Finding belonging in Newark
Hourie: And then I moved to the US in 2017. I lived in Newark, New Jersey. When I say I love Newark, everyone looks at me as if I’m crazy. I love Newark. I mean, yeah, I found it is a very diverse city. It’s very diverse. I lived near campus, so it was pretty safe. Maybe there is other parts of Newark that I didn't go to that everyone talks about that is dangerous, but I didn't get there in five years of me living in Newark. I loved Newark. I loved my experience there. I felt like the society is really diverse. No one is looking at you in a certain way. People are accepting. I liked my experience at Rutgers and Newark, to be honest.
It was my first time to see OK, now you feel like you would belong somewhere. It was Newark for me. And now I always feel like I'm going to go back to Newark. Wherever I move, I say, “I’m going back to Newark.” People ask, “But how? Newark is dangerous.” For me, it’s, “What kind of dangerous?” Because of where I lived before, if there are no armed men running around, I’m good. I say it’s very relative. Like for me, it's just fine. I lived in a worse place than this. So for me, this is good. This is good.
Including refugee expertise in decisions
Hourie: So yeah, and in terms of working, during my studies in Jersey at Rutgers doing my PhD, I was also running the University Alliance for Refugees and At-Risk Migrants. To be honest, I work with people who support refugees, so I don’t have many difficult stories. People who choose to work with refugees are supportive. So that's why I didn't get any issues. But my main issue was sometimes I felt that some organizations who are working for refugees, they're just doing it wrong. That you want to solve the refugee issue without the refugee input, it doesn't work. Yeah, it doesn't work. This is what I will always like highlight.
Like we're here, I want to make sure that if you don't have the refugee perspective, you just have your perspective of someone being born and raised in New York and you want to solve a problem that have happened like in another continent, that doesn't work. And sometimes you find some people who are accepting for their perspective and others not. But mostly they will listen. This is the main point I always highlight in my work: you have to integrate what people need and the refugee perspective into what you do, because you are supposed to be serving them. Without the input, you're going to just waste money and time. And it will be a lose-lose situation for everyone. This is one of the things that I found.
The other one is like looking at the refugees just for stories and they're bringing them to the table just for stories. We have to make this stop, because refugees are not just stories. Like we have expert refugees. You have policymakers, refugees. When I’m at the table, I’m not there only as a refugee. I’m there as someone who has a PhD and has worked for eight years in refugee advocacy and policymaking. So like I know what I'm talking about. Don’t just bring me to the table to tell my story, because it is irrelevant here. It supports my professional experience, that's for sure.
And that's what makes my professional experience more relevant, that having the PhD and having the experience plus the lived experience that helps me and supports my professional experience to do it in a more relevant and efficient manner. But we cannot disregard the part that I'm a professional expert, plus a lived experience background. It's not just the lived experience background that gets highlighted. And this is what I also always make sure to highlight.
Seeing the whole person
Rhonda: Some people don’t realize that. So I worked in international development organizations for about 10 years. And it's one of the things that struck me because it was a learning experience for me as well is that when people are displaced, yes, now they are labeled as refugee, but they had a whole life, they had careers, they had an education. I mean, they come with skills. So yes, now they're displaced, but they have a whole life and experience and a profession that they had to leave behind. And so I think part of what I'm trying to do is to bring the whole person to the fore and not just the label of refugees, which people just don't understand the whole breadth of what that means. I hope I’m giving you honor.
Co founding Spark 15
Rhonda: The last thing I’ll ask you about is your organization, Spark 15. Could you tell us a little about that?
Hourie: So now I'm not part of the organization, but I will go back to 2015 when I co-founded Spark 15 with another group of also young refugees. Our aim at that time was to get more refugees to the universities and to the job market. Because I remember I looked at the University of Malta And there were just like 11 refugees out of 11,000 students, even though they have a free access to the education in Malta. At that time, I get engaged with the UNHCR Malta. They were doing some consultation on refugees, and this is how I met the other group of young refugees. And we decided, and we were talking about the challenges that are facing young refugees in Malta. And I was okay, it looks like we have common challenges here.
like part of it is the education, the documentation work. And then, after the consultation, we decided we're gonna form our own organization. We started Spark 15 with the question: “How can we help young refugees go to the University of Malta or get more jobs?” One of the main issue we found out that refugees don't have enough money to do the IELTS exam that they have to do to get the university. The preparation course was like 1,200 euro and 200 euro exams. And they literally mainly were unaccompanied minors. They had to work full time. There is no way of doing this. So we at that time we published an article in Times of Malta. My colleagues Sari and Mohammed [names as transcribed] wrote about refugee access to higher education.
They were talking about like refugee access to higher education, and we had some people reaching out to us. They asked, “How could we help?” One was a professor at the University of Malta. She was really interested in the work and helped us put together a program offering free IELTS preparation for refugees. We got people to volunteer two hours a week to teach the courses. We helped also raise some money from private sectors to pay for the exams fees. And we had this program running. It's still there till this day, but also they added the like computer literacy program also tried to help refugees with that. We also had football and sports tournaments, bringing young refugee teams together with teams from international schools or colleges to play together.
activities to bring refugees and host communities together and programs to support refugee skills building in Malta. And then I had to leave in 2017, but like you can, like the Spark 15 is still there and they're doing a great job and there's other people who took over now. Which is really great.
Rhonda: Excellent.
Persevering and passing opportunities to others
Rhonda: So we're about to wrap up. So 2 things. Is there anything that I didn't ask you that you would love to share? And the second thing is, for those people who are listening, whether they're immigrants, whether they're refugees, what advice would you give them in terms of your own experience and what you've learned in your own process and your studies?
Hourie: So for me, I would say, I know that might sound a cliche when we say don't give up, but it's really don't give up. I know the sort of the struggles and the limitations that a refugee status place on a person. It limits everything around you: what you can think about, what you can do, and where you can work. But at the same time, we don't have to give up because we like some struggles are really bearable and we can overcome them. By always having a goal in mind, if you want to reach it, you can do whatever it takes to reach it. For me, my family comes first. I want to get my family out of the camp. I want to get them out of poverty. And I did that.
So that was like my main goal. And helping my brother like go to the university and now he is doing his medical school. In Cuba.
Rhonda: That's awesome.
Hourie: For sure, the second is giving back to the community and helping however I can, passing the opportunities I got to other refugees. This is my second aim in life. When you have an aim in life, work for it. There is no one who will work for refugees like refugees themselves. Because whoever you think you have certain kind of empathy, you won't have it the same as the person who lived it. I want to do it. And I think whatever we go through, sometimes I try to think about it from a positive perspective. Yes, it was a struggle, now 30 years of struggle, but at the same time, this is why I am who I am today.
If I didn't go through all of that, I don't think I would have this certain type of empathy that makes me really work hard to just tell people, even if I'm not getting anything in return, just to support people because I know like how it feels and it should do that. And I'm proud of that. Like I don't mind like if going through the struggle, the struggles were meant to build such personality or power. that would try to pass this opportunity to others, I don't mind it, you know. But my main point will always remain how you use your position as a refugee when you arrive at any position in passing this to other people. Like it shouldn't stop at you.
And that's what I was saying when they ask me, I remember during my studies, I was always applying for fellowships or whatever. They would ask, “Why should we invest in you?” I would say, “You’re not investing in me. You’re investing in a cause, not just one person. I will make sure to pass this on to other refugees.” And this is the main lesson, our main message I would give to other refugees, like try to just not think about you. And I think most refugees don't think just about themselves. But always in whatever you do, keep in mind that there's other thousands or millions who didn't get the opportunity you got. Try to make the best out of it.
Rhonda: Yeah, I love that. Thank you so much, Hourie. This was a really awesome conversation. I enjoyed talking to you. Thank you for taking the time.
You can connect with Hourie Tafech, PhD on LinkedIn.
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