- [students] Good books, good times.
- Any war that you have seen on TV in the last 20 years,
we have had a kid from that region.
It's hard hearing that a kid
saw their neighbor's house bombed
or seen a massacre of their entire village.
But it also speaks to the resilience of the human spirit,
especially that in kids.
- Which word in the sentence is the noun?
Person, place, thing, or idea.
- A person.
- When I come to Fugees, I didn't know how to read,
so the first year I come here,
I learned how to read and write.
[gentle music]
- [teacher] The audience.
- When I came here, I thought it was gonna be the same,
so I was ready, like, to get bullied.
It was sort of different, like,
everything was not so hard on me.
So when I don't understand anything,
I go to a teacher, he help me out.
[bright music]
[woman speaking in Somali]
- I didn't understand nothing
'cause the teacher kept talking,
and he asked me a question, and
I don't even understand the question.
[gentle music]
- It would be like if I sent you to China and I said,
all right, you're getting one or two hours
of support in extra Mandarin a day.
The rest of the time,
you're in college-level classes—-in Mandarin.
It cannot function that way.
- [student] How did you make that?
- You use watercolor to make it,
and you also add sponge or napkin,
and I really like how you made this
and it's organic.
- So we started off with six boys
and a teacher in a church basement,
and have grown to 90 kids in our Atlanta campus
and 42 kids here in Columbus.
[bright music]
- [student] Be careful here, ok?
- [student] Because she's standing up.
- [laughs] I'm not.
- I had started a soccer team for refugee boys,
and after practice, the boys would ask for help
with their homework.
I was working with this kid, Lewis,
and he was like, 'Coach, I have a headache.
Can you read to me?'
Second day, he's like, 'Coach, I have a headache.
Can you read to me?'
Did the same thing.
By the third day, I was like, 'You know what, Lewis?
I have a headache.'
And then he looks up at me and says,
'Coach, I can't read.'
And it shook me.
He'd been in the country for three years
and couldn't read.
- One.
Two.
I really love coaching.
I really love the kids and the connection.
That used to be me.
It's very hard to move to a new country
and try to adapt to it.
'Cause a lot of people think it's easy
to learn the language, to understand,
and it's so hard.
- It's difficult.
It's a difficult transition to do something
that your family has never done.
And to see a student stand up, graduating,
being the first in their family to finish high school,
proud of who they are,
grateful for being here
and doing what their parents never thought
would be possible.
Graduation is probably one of our most powerful experiences.
- So we are gonna do the Fugees Creed.
- Fugees gave me friends.
- [students] I take pride in the Fugees Academy.
- [student] Fugees gave me a soccer team.
- [students] Persevere.
In the face of challenge, I keep trying.
I work harder, smarter, and more creatively.
- Fugees gave me a chance to learn.
- [students] I take pride in being a Fugee.
- I would argue that refugees and immigrants
are the most American.
They are the most patriotic because here's a country
that has taken them in to protect them,
and I would say that in no other part of the world
could a school like this exist.
[soft upbeat music]