The University of Louisville Alumni Magazine: for alumni, faculty, staff, students and anyone that is a UofL Cardinal fan.
Issue link: https://louisville.epubxp.com/i/705015
Ibrahim Noor did not know what his future held, but things certainly looked bleak at the moment. The dust of the dry grassland was kicking up again, and with few permanent structures in which to f nd refuge, Noor closed his eyes to block not only the elements, but also the harsh reality of where things stood in his life. He was around 13 (there's no birth record to verify his exact age) and his family had f ed the violence that plagued their homeland of Somalia in the early 1990s, f nding their way to a refugee camp in Kenya. And that's where he would remain for the next 15 years — unable to work, unable to leave and unable to f nd a place he could call home. A quarter century later and halfway around the world, Jennifer Ballard-Kang stared out at the students before her in a Washington, D.C. classroom. She had earned her master's in English as a Second Language, but she was f nding it diff cult to understand how to get her students to learn. Most of them were refugees and immigrants seeking a better life, and Ballard- Kang began to feel like she was letting them down. Something wasn't clicking. The tried-and-true teaching techniques she had learned were failing. Her students were intelligent, but they weren't focused. Ballard-Kang suspected there was more to the story than just what was happening inside her class. Two people, separated by geography, circumstance and perspective, who found themselves drawn to the University of Louisville to make their world — and the lives of the people around them — better. But they took drastically different routes. "I feel like I'm contributing now so my children — and the children of all refugees — can have a better future in our new home." —Ibrahim Noor, 15P A REFUGE FOR SUCCESS How UofL's refugee outreach efforts are helping students on both sides of the equation