“So many people who are in some of the worst situations humanly imaginable are the most optimistic and hopeful and resourceful people out there. If we put vulnerable people at the forefront of change and give them even a fraction of the resources that we have, that we throw away in leftover food, or instead of buying a new upgrade on our phone, for example, if we just put aside a little bit of that, it will make a huge difference.

“I see the kids who are in the refugee camps all over the world, and I don’t see hatred in them. I don’t see them saying things or have feeling things like, ‘the first thing I’m gonna do when I get out of here is get revenge on the person who kicked me out of my home.’ That’s not what refugees say. That’s not what I’m seeing. What I’m seeing is: ‘if I had a moment, if I had a chance, I would go back, I’d rebuild it better. I would make sure nothing like this could happen again. I would help anyone who’s displaced, anyone who’s a refugee.’

“That’s the hope for me. Knowing that the people who are the most affected, they themselves want us to move forward into peace, into prosperity, into change.”

– Emtithal “Emi” Mahmoud

Emi Mahmoud is a Sudanese American and former refugee who is a celebrated poet, activist, founder, and UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador who now lives in Philadelphia. Her refugee experience is singular, though not atypical.

Emi was born in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, and her family is from Darfur. Her mother is a medical lab technologist and her father is a surgeon. When she was one year old, she and her family escaped to Yemen. Sudan was in the midst of its second civil war.

After several years in Yemen, when Emi was 4, she and her family were able to enter the US having been awarded visas through the US Diversity Visa lottery. They settled first in Virginia where a few other family members resided, then moved to Indiana, then Philadelphia where she has lived since.

Read the full article about Emi Mahmoud by Joel Meyers at Global Washington.