tgrtranslation

Has a stranger ever brought unexpected happiness into your life? In 2021, I moved to a new town in the U.S. to teach high school French. The classroom work was fun, but as a former “career girl” who had worked in our country’s capital, I got lonely in an old Southern town where people my age had married and settled down early. Friday nights, we teachers met up for dinner at an Italian restaurant. Saturday nights, I spent trying to teach myself guitar.

Taking a break from that discouraging effort, skimming LinkedIn, I saw the hopeful, clean-shaven face of a South Asian man in a message with a request to connect. “I am the headmaster of a school in a refugee camp,” he explained. I looked at the open expression in his picture and thought he was genuine. I accepted, knowing I’d turn down any requests for money, but that there might be other ways to show solidarity.

Thus began a relationship that has brought a wealth of new friends, laughter, and connections, and the knowledge that, in his words, ‘we can succeed if we try, but we have to try hard.’ Because change takes time, and international institutions designed to help refugees seem to move as slowly as drifting continents, reaching regular people matters.

In learning, we can gain perspective. Finding out how people in serious situations cope provides inspiration for those of us who get discouraged by our own circumstances. The refugee-created and written blog of Life Destination School offers glimpses into the struggles of people who sometimes lack basic amenities, but never the will to find humor, hope, and solidarity. It is our hope that the rest of the world will join the quest of any and all “stateless” refugees for human rights.

Today is the Summer Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere. It is also World Refugee Day, June 20th, 2025.