By Anne Halliwell

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UK students had the chance to learn about one refugee’s journey around Africa and eventually to the U.S. in the William T. Young Library Wednesday evening.

Nicole Tshibangu’s family moved from the Congo in the 2000s during the Second Congo War.

“It was not safe for us to live there,” Tshibangu said. They moved from the eastern part of the Congo to the south, but eventually had to cross the border into Zambia, then Namibia, where they stayed for almost 10 years.

“By the way, I’m married,” Tshibangu interjected, adding that she has three children aged nine, seven and three, all of whom were born in Namibia. “We were struggling to raise them … (Namibia’s government) would not give us the paper to become citizens, to get a job and finish our education.”

Tshibangu and her husband wrote to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in 2006, pleading their case and asking for resettlement. They waited until 2012 to receive a reply.

“We were trying to find life for our children,” Tshibangu said. “They write us a letter, ‘your case has been accepted. You’re going to the U.S.A.’”

In July 2013, Tshibangu’s family boarded a plane after an extensive series of interviews and health tests.

“We got to the airport and there were people waiting for us,” Tshibangu said. “They say, ‘Hello, we are from Kentucky Refugee Ministries, we are here to welcome you.’”

KRM, a local nonprofit that helps resettle people who have fled from their own countries due to religious, social or ethnic persecution, has some of the highest numbers of Congolese refugees in the world, said Barbara Kleine, the Lexington office director.

There are between 13 million and 15 million refugees in the world, Kleine said, and of those, less than one percent is successfully settled into new countries.

KRM offers refugees housing, health checks, access to help with social security and welfare and education, Kleine said.

The goal, Kleine said, is for refugees to get jobs within about six months after their arrival.

“We are new, everything is unclear for us — new place, new environment,” Tshibangu said. “But they are so friendly to us, Kentucky Refugee Ministries. They show love.”

Since entering schools, ­Tshibangu’s children have adjusted to their respective grade levels. After three months, Tshibangu’s husband found a job in a factory, where he still works, and Tshibangu worked in a soap factory for about two months before being hired at KRM to do translation work.

English is her fifth language.

The event was organized by Todd Stoltzfus, who heads the new Social Enterprise and Innovation/Certified Nonprofit Program to train freshmen, sophomores and juniors for jobs at similar nonprofits.

“I’d like to work at a nonprofit, something like this,” said Taylor Stutzman, an international studies sophomore.

Stutzman sought out the event because she hopes for an internship with KRM next semester or somewhere down the road.

“I was just recently exposed to it, reading on their website … I think that what they do is really awesome,” Stutzman said. “I can’t even imagine myself moving to a different country.”