Juan Perdomo Ramirez gained more than a mentor when he enrolled in Bridge Refugee Services’ Youth Mentor Program. He found a friend to support and encourage him through the ups and downs of pursuing his goals as a refugee building a new life in East Tennessee.
“I have somebody who cares about me and I care about her and her family,” he said of his mentor, Carrie Thompson. “We’re not like a mentor and mentee; we’re just like friends and sometimes that helps more.”
Carrie, an English teacher by profession, anticipated she would help Juan, 25, improve his English writing skills to prepare for success in college when she was partnered with him last year through the mentor program. The program pairs teen and young adult refugees who have been in the US for less than five years with mentors who help them prepare for college, enter the workforce, or reach other personal goals they set for themselves. Juan enrolled in the program after Bridge launched it in 2020 and Carrie is his second mentor.
“When I saw that he was so smart, so intelligent, so clever and then how he has the drive to work, to just always be improving himself, I was like, ‘Woah, nothing can limit him,’” she said. “I just thought I need to do whatever I can to help him succeed in what he wants to succeed at.”
Carrie quickly determined the best way to mentor Juan, who already had a job and a strong grasp of English, was to be a friend and confidante. “At its core, the Mentor Program is just about listening and including that person in things – just simple things we take for granted that really makes the mentee, the refugee, feel included and feel loved,” she said.
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She invited Juan to join her family for meals and special occasions. “The simple things, to me, are most important,” Carrie said. “Juan and I make time to have coffee with each other and it goes from there. We include each other in our lives and it doesn’t have to be a huge time or energy thing for it to be really meaningful and important.” Juan said he and Carrie text frequently between their in-person hang-outs. They share laughter and stories. “We meet every time we can,” he said. “We talk about life.”
Her friendship has seen him through setbacks on his journey to enroll in college to study computer science. US immigration law requires refugees like Juan, who left Colombia as a teenager and came to the US in 2019, to apply for permanent resident status after living in America for at least one year. The Green Card approval process took up three years, which meant Juan’s dreams of starting college were on hold while he waited. “It felt like I was working for something that was never going to happen,” he said.
But Carrie’s optimism and encouragement helped him stay the course. “I’m very realistic with everything I have around me,” Juan said. “She’s the opposite. She’s super optimistic. She helped me to forget about the fact that I didn’t have my Green Card.”
When the Green Card finally arrived this summer, Carrie was one of the first people Juan contacted to celebrate the news. “We basically couldn’t believe it was real and I kept asking him, ‘You’re actually touching it? It’s in your hand? It’s real?’ and he said, ‘Yes, I’m actually holding it in my hand,’” Carrie said.
With the card in hand, Juan can now take the next steps towards achieving his dreams. Carrie says she will continue to be a cheerleader and resource to keep him motivated. “He gets to take the lead on what he wants to accomplish,” she said. “Juan is a really independent person because he’s been on his own from the time he was 14 and so he’s used to doing things on his own and to making his own decisions for his life. To me, being a mentor isn’t so much about giving him advice or even feedback necessarily – it’s more about being an active listener.”
Carrie serves as a sounding board for Juan to weigh the pros and cons of decisions he needs to make and connects him with community resources when the need arises. “It can be really lonely as a refugee, especially, in Juan’s case, since he didn’t have his family with him and it was really important for him as he was getting started to go out with people and see things and meet other people,” she said. “The more people and experiences that Juan has, the more connections he makes, the better chance he has of succeeding. I didn’t realize how important that was when I got started with this mentor program.”
Juan’s path to college has taken longer than he had hoped, but he said Carrie’s upbeat personality has complimented his pragmatism through the process. “I know if I call her, she will answer the call,” he said. “I lucked out with this program. This program and the people you meet in this program help you out a lot.”