You see them every day. You probably walk past them without noticing. They serve you food. They clean the tables that you left in such a dire hurry. They want to be nurses and engineers. They are University of Denver employees. They are high school students. They are also immigrant refugees. They are Yai Deng and Farhia Ahdi.
Denver South High School runs a program for these refugees called the Newcomer Center, which focuses on teaching English and general life skills.
Refugee children learn how to ride a bus, how to use a phone book and other tasks that are essential to living in a new environment.
Dennis Smith, who is a teacher at South, administers the program.
Deng was given a bike so that he could get back and forth from his job at Centennial Halls. Smith obtains RTD passes for other students so that they can get to school and jobs.
Smith drives students home late at night – or to job interviews at DU and other places.
“It’s very hard to get these students employed and to keep them employed,” said Smith.
Smith’s goal is to strive to open opportunity for these young people wherever he can.
From e-mailing college admissions offices around the state to “trying to get more kids bikes – it gives them more freedom around the city,” said Smith.
Deng is a refugee from southern Sudan who works in the cafeteria at Centennial Halls.
“I help with the cleaning of the tables, and give everything to the customer to make them happy,” said Deng.
Deng said he is from a portion of Sudan where there is “bad government” and where there has been civil war and fighting for over 60 years.
Deng’s father died when he was 7. He and his brother moved to Denver after a brief stay in Egypt with their uncle.
“We applied to the U.N. to get us here and we got rejected,” Deng said. “But then we explained how bad it is, and they accept us.”
Deng plays center midfield for South High School’s soccer team. He wants to go to college and become an engineer.
Smith has gotten help from DU volunteers from the Graduate School of International Studies. DU graduate student Gabe Kadell has been teaching Deng English equivalents for cafeteria items so that Deng could perform his job better.
Farhia Ahdi works as a cashier in the Nelson cafeteria. She is a refugee from Somalia who immigrated with her mother, four sisters and three brothers.
“I was in Mr. Smith’s class and he asked us who seriously needed to work, and of course I did,” said Ahdi.
Ahdi started working at Nelson this January and expresses a lot of excitement about her job here. “Sometimes when I’m working I wish I went (to school) here.” Ahdi thinks about studying nursing, but because she doesn’t like the sight of blood, opts for business instead. “I want to go to college – I want to go to DU.”
