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Client Stories
CFPIN is the Path to My Dream: Having a Better Life in America
Profile by Eddy Isango
Smiling under his thick moustache, Ahmed Ataelgied expresses his joy to be in Lincoln at the Center for People in Need. “I am happy to work like this. This Center is a path to my dream…which is to get a better life in America,” he said.
Ahmed, 46, arrived with his family in the United States in June 2009, after winning a U.S. resident visa through the U.S. government’s diversification lottery. Originally from Sudan, he worked 13 years as a marketing and sales executive in an Emirate company in Dubai. “I put all money that I saved during 13 years to come over here,” he said. He left his business believing that moving to the United States was worth the cost because it offered his family a new life. “I could leave all that because I was sure that the better is to come,” he said. He adds that his dream is to get a good education for himself and his family and to build a better life.
He thinks his dream is becoming a reality because of the help he receives at the Center. His improved language skills are one indication. Ahmed explained that he could not understand Americans when he arrived in the U.S., even though he’d studied English and had earned his Master’s degree in economics from an Indian university. The Center for People in Need offers classes in English as a second language to volunteers who work there. “After a year at the Center for People in Need, I have been able to get almost all that a native American speaker can say,” he said.
A second indication of his progress is his newly acquired computer skills. Ahmed is happy he can now use a computer. A computer lab is available at the Center for volunteers to learn important computer skills.
For Ahmed, the path for a better future is clearer now with the skills and knowledge he’s acquired from other programs available to volunteers too. He earned a certificate of food handling safety, and gained experience using a pallet jack, working in a warehouse and environment cleaning. “For sure, I could not be refused for some jobs in the future as I got so many skills that I did not get before,” he said.
In addition, volunteer workers also receive other assistance from the Center in the form of food, clothing, items for school and support.
The Center also offers a multi-cultural atmosphere where people from different cultures, races and ethnicities can gather. Ahmed is particularly appreciative of this because his country has been at war since 1995. The country is divided between the northern region and southern region leaving no stability therefore many people are starving, displaced or killed. Ahmed is happy because the division between the Sudanese from the north and those from the south is not evident at the Center. In fact, there are many Sudanese at the Center from both sides of the conflict doing their community service like Ahmed.
Ahmed is glad for so much support from the Center. With his shirt hanging over his pants, covering his potbelly, Ahmed happily goes about his work. “My future is in this,” he states assuredly.