I left Kenya in January 2006, leaving behind my family and everything I knew to find a better life. I was an acrobat for the past 12 years with the Black Angels African Acrobats. We received several emails from contractors for circuses in United States wanting us to be acrobats in this country. The emails …
The majority of clients sheltered at La Posada arrive as referrals from immigration attorneys and U.S. Immigration officials. Generally, these clients are seeking asylum or other legal residency in the United States. They stay with us as their cases adjudicate before the Immigration court. Lengths of stay vary and are case-specific. Some clients stay with …
Saturday, May 5, 2012, was La Roche College’s 47th Annual Commencement. For graduating senior Yoanki Hernandez Leyva, that day marked an extraordinary milestone along an arduous journey. Not only did he successfully meet all the academic requirements needed to earn him a bachelor of science degree in facility management, but he also successfully broke cultural …
Having seen – only once – a photo of his father and visited only occasionally by his mother, it was 16-year old Elvin’s dream to join his 30 year-old uncle in the U.S. If both of them could send money to his impoverished grandmother caring for his two younger siblings, life for them would be …
Frightened. Hungry. Cold. Those are the words repeated over and over when Nelson tells the story of his journey to safety. Those words, along with walk, walk, walk. Nelson, 18, grew up in the streets in Honduras. In November, 2008, street gangs and violence forced him and his 20-year-old brother to try to find safety …
We were blessed to have two remarkable young women at La Posada Providencia during the first months of this year. Sister Bertshabe Palomino Montalvo, a novice with the Sisters of Divine Providence, the community of women religious that sponsors La Posada, spent three months at the shelter gaining ministry experience – all kinds of experience! …
By Jimmy Dunn Published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Wednesday, November 25, 2009 An idea born of frustration three years earlier had come to fruition. At midnight on March 31, 2005, Yoanki Hernandez Leyva embarked on a life-changing odyssey that began inCuba and brought him to McCandless, Pa. The clandestine meetings with his six friends were …
Many of our clients have had businesses before coming to the U.S. From Cuba, meet José, a professional upholsterer and his assistants, Yendri and Pedro, who have been occupied for the past two weeks reupholstering our time-worn weather beaten dining room chairs. Thanks to Ruben Gallegos, Jr., our Board Chair, and his father, several like-new single bed mattresses …
Walid left Egypt in fear for his life, the victim of a hate crime. Now, more than 10 years later, he won’t speak of his experience in his native country; he prefers to focus on his dreams for the future and what he needs to do to achieve them. “I’m going to San Francisco,” he …
Said is from Somalia—a country of ongoing political upheaval, where just being on the street is dangerous. In 2004, Said’s two brothers, 30 and 35, were driving when someone fired a rifle at them. The bullet passed through the jaws of the brother sitting in the passenger’s seat and then struck both hands of the …
