Musa: A School Director Ready to Teach Again

By Chris Jensen , Communications Manager

Before the war, Musa had built a comfortable life for himself. Originally from Darfur, he had made a home and a career in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum.

“My life was very nice there before the war,” he shared.

His days were full. Musa was a school director and ran private schools. In the evenings, he worked a second job as a nurse in a nearby clinic. “It was very nice for me, because I was joining different life activities.”

When the war reached his home, everything he had built was interrupted. Musa fled Khartoum, traveling however he could. “I came some journeys on foot and some, by cars,” he said. First, he moved from Khartoum to Al Jazeera. “Then Al Jazeera also had been attacked. And we came some steps on foot and some we rode on the bus.” The journey carried him and his family to the Blue Nile, and finally across the border into Ethiopia.

Today, Musa lives in a refugee settlement in Ethiopia, where he was elected to help represent his community. “So I have been elected to represent refugee administration in Ura settlement.” But the protection he has found has not been enough to rebuild on. “Even though I got protection here… it does not fulfill my life or my needs of the life here.”

This is the second time Musa has been a refugee. During an earlier displacement, following the Darfur crisis, he worked with several NGOs, including as an educator with the International Rescue Committee and as a trainer with the Red Crescent in Sudan.

What Musa wants is the chance to use his skills again. “I do not want to stay here for long because, you know, my generation are waiting [for] me there to help them.” That sense of responsibility runs through everything he says about the future.

RefugePoint staff have submitted Musa’s family’s case for resettlement consideration. For him, the opportunity to be resettled is not only his own.

“It will change my family’s life because I will work and, you know, I will [be] able to pay expenses of my family…”

He thinks of his children and the opportunities that a stable future and formal education could open up for them.

Musa isn’t only waiting. He has also applied to a skilled-labor pathway to Canada, hoping his teaching and nursing experience might open a door. “I applied [for] this program because I see that if I got this opportunity, I could [be] able to… relieve my family again.”

He is not attached to any particular destination, only to the possibility of starting over. “Any country that has work, I just go and work and get education… I would like to restart also my life,” he said.