Discovering a future

Rwandan refugee gets new life in U.S., then works his way to the head of the class

By Ruma Banerji Kumar
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July 2, 2006

Robert Kabera is in a cinderblock classroom that sits awkwardly on the shoulder of a field where he used to play soccer after school.

There is no time for soccer these days. Or track. He listens to friends chat about what fraternities and sororities they'll pledge in college.

"Y'all are crazy," he says, brushing off their idle chatter. When he drawls "y'all" and "maaan," it's clear six years in the South have seeped into this Rwandan.

Robert's mind is full of two worlds: the past and the future. On this hot, sticky May day, he is thinking of what he has escaped and of what he is chasing.

A red shirt that hangs freely off his thin frame reveals the maxim that kept him strong as he witnessed genocide and cycled through refugee camps in six countries: "Elevate Yourself."

Robert, 17, the youngest of four, came to Memphis in August 2000. He and his family were among 229 refugees Catholic Charities helped resettle in Memphis that year. They escaped Rwanda after witnessing the 1994 genocide that killed hundreds of thousands in his tribe.

Everything Robert Kabera has done since April 29, 1994, when his family made the trek to the sanctuary of a Red Cross shelter, has had something to do with education.

In refugee camps he joined debate teams -- taking advantage of any type of academic program he could so his intellect would grow enough to let him go back and help rebuild war-torn regions like his homeland.

"When you wake up and there is no prospect for a future, I realized all I had left was my mind. It was the only thing they couldn't take from me," Robert said.

The genocide had stolen everything else: his family's wealth and status, the certainty of a comfortable life, their home, family business, inheritance. Everything but education.

It's this journey of the mind that made Robert a poster child for the Rotary Prep Program that sends talented and disadvantaged inner-city youth to elite schools.

Robert caught the attention of program officials last fall when Vickie Polk, his Kingsbury High guidance counselor, recommended him.

She had watched him grow from an introspective 11-year-old who didn't speak a bit of English to a self-assured young man who learned English just five years ago. A young man who pushed himself into essay contests and engineering competitions and asked for as many honors and advanced classes as his schedule would allow.

"I'm stubborn in the sense that what others find impossible, I dare to try," Robert said.

It's that attitude that got him into the Rotary program last spring and into the halls of Exeter in New Hampshire last summer.

At Kingsbury, particularly in math and science, Robert finds himself coasting. His math teacher Nancy Stafford says, "I don't find myself challenging him enough."

She tries, but he's often done with classwork before his classmates. He's often the first -- and only -- volunteer to discuss problems and demonstrate them on the board. He begins his homework while his teacher works with struggling students.

At Exeter, though, Robert was pushed to think. He calls it "scholastic discipline." He took psychology classes. His homework often involved reading more than 100 pages a night, and he devoured it hungrily, he says.

"You were forced to be your best just to keep up," Robert said.

His summer at Exeter was so profound, he vied for the Rotary program again this summer. And he got in again.

This time, he is in Pittsburgh, at Carnegie Mellon for six weeks of classes in an engineering program that's ranked eighth in the nation. He flew out June 25 with his parents' advice ringing in his mind: "Be polite. People are willing to help if they see your intentions are good."

"In order to achieve," Robert said, "you must not just dream, but believe and work hard. I choose to live the dream. When you go through what my family and I have gone through, you can choose to let it traumatize you or strengthen you. It made me stronger. It made me want to fight for something better."