Patrick

In 2015, at the age of 14, Patrick and his family were forced to flee their home in Congo and sought safety in Nairobi, Kenya. Patrick’s parents struggled to provide for the family by selling mobile phone accessories and milk. In 2017, Patrick’s mother passed away, leaving his father to support the family. Patrick’s father moved to a city three hours outside of Nairobi to search for better work opportunities. Initially, he sent Patrick and his siblings $20 to $30 a month to cover their essential needs, but shortly after he left Nairobi he abruptly stopped sending money.

Patrick’s eldest brother, Gustav, attempted to support his siblings but struggled to do so and ended up abandoning the family. Grace, Patrick’s older sister, suffered from the trauma she’d experienced during their flight from Congo and was unable to work. Patrick was forced to start working odd jobs in the neighborhood in order to support Grace and his other siblings, Stella and Mike. Having learned how to shave hair from his brother Gustav, he began working at a nearby barbershop, but his income was not sufficient enough to support the entire family.

In 2019, Antoinette, the RefugePoint Community Navigator who works in Patrick’s neighborhood in Nairobi, identified Patrick and his family as refugees in need of urgent assistance. The household began receiving food and rent assistance, and Patrick completed RefugePoint’s Business Development Skills training and received a small business grant of $300 to launch a business selling second-hand clothes in his neighborhood.

After running the business for a short while, Patrick had enough income to re-enroll his brother Mike into secondary school, where he’d previously been banned due to the inability to pay school fees. “If someone is out of school and isn’t working, it’s very easy for their life to be ruined,” Patrick told us. Recently, when business slowed down a bit, Patrick had to close down the stall where he’d been running his business, as he was unable to cover the rent for the stall. Patrick is now using a smartphone that RefugePoint provided him to sell second-hand clothes online by sharing photos of the items on his WhatsApp and Facebook profiles. This also allows Patrick to take more shifts at the barbershop he works at in his neighborhood.

Despite his resilience, Patrick barely manages to hold back a stream of tears when he speaks about his family’s future. Patrick is happy that he is able to send his brother to school, and has dreams of pursuing his own educational goals in the future. “I want to be able to study and make a better future for myself and my family,” he shared with us.