For HuffPost’s #LoveTakesAction series, we’re telling stories of how people are standing up to hate and supporting those most threatened. What will you stand up for? Tell us with #LoveTakesAction.
When Ekhlas Ahmed, a refugee from Darfur, Sudan, first came to the United States, she didn’t speak a word of English. After getting off at the wrong bus stop on her first day of school and wandering around lost for eight hours, the young girl promised herself that she would master her new language.
She studied hard in school and also tuned in to The Ellen Show, carefully jotting down and memorizing some of the words host Ellen Degeneres used on the program.
About ten years later, Ahmed is a grad-school student, an activist, and a high school English teacher in Maine who spends extra time helping multilingual students prepare for college.
After Ahmed wrote DeGeneres a thank you letter for helping her learn English, the teacher was invited to appear on “The Ellen Show” on Thursday ― and she got a surprise that made her break down in tears.
DeGeneres teamed up with Shutterfly to pay off Ahmed’s grad school debt, giving her a check for $22,000.
“Every once in a while a story finds its way to me that puts everything in perspective,” DeGeneres said on the show.
“Your story is so inspiring,” she added later on.
Ahmed became a refugee at the age of 12, after war broke out in her native Sudan. According to Maine Public, her family spent two years in Egypt before being resettled in Portland, Maine, when Ahmed was a teenager.
“My parents wanted a better life for us and they had to take us out of there,” Ahmed said.
Sudan is one of the seven Muslim-majority countries targeted in President Donald Trump’s beleaguered travel ban.
After coming to America, Ahmed became a community activist, raising awareness about armed conflict in Sudan and its effects on women and children.
The young woman is now an AmeriCorps teacher at Casco Bay High School in Portland, Maine, and is the school’s first alumni staff member. She coordinates the school’s Make It Happen! program, which helps multilingual students navigate the college admissions process and connects them to leadership and professional development opportunities. Ahmed is also working towards a master’s degree in education.
“You love teaching because you realize how important it is,” DeGeneres told Ahmed during the interview.
“It is!” Ahmed said. “It is so important for me to be there for the students and for me to be a role model for them, because when I was their age, I didn’t have someone that was an immigrant from Africa, an immigrant who went through college and graduated, and didn’t speak English but now is in a classroom in front of them, so I wanted to give them that.”
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