have been forced from their homes due to
violence and oppression around the world
these people are often left without
their families without any basis of
support and there we usually generalize
these population as refugees if these
refugees are within the lucky half of 1
percent of their population that gets
resettle permanently into another
country they’re subject to not knowing
the language or the culture or anyone
outside of their own family one of the
places that they may end up is right
here in our home of Dayton Ohio
now last year Spencer and I created a
program that connects teenage refugees
who knew to the country with native-born
teenagers it was based on an art project
was focused on each person’s idea of
home this along with the occasional hike
or cookout or soccer game let us spend
time with these people and get to know
them and form relationships that will
last a lifetime all while making a
program to advocate for the population
through art through this program I met
my friend Eric Eric was born in a
refugee camp and he lived there his
entire life Eric Eric if you don’t know
anything about refugee camps they’re
often unsanitary overpopulated in
understaffed places they’re not ideal
places to be and many of the people in
our program grew up in refugee camps now
this might sound terrible but Eric is
statistically lucky because on average
it takes 20 years to even get in to a
refugee camp and once you’re there it
can take on average another 8 years to
be resettled into another country the
challenges faced by Eric the rest of the
kids in our program and their families
are not unique stories these stories
could be going to be told time and time
again by families all over the country
in the world now we have refugees in our
program from the Democratic Republic of
the Congo Eritrea Myanmar and a couple
other places and while it’s clear that
Spencer and I come from drastical
different backgrounds from these kids
our time with the program and with these
refugees has helped it helped us to see
it differently and through our art work
we have established every a lot of
people’s idea of home we brought
together two kids from drastically
different backgrounds to express what
makes themselves unique and what their
idea of home is my partner for this
project was my friend Eric I’m sorry my
friend Steve and to do this artwork we
would take a bunch of pictures from the
internet whether it’s flags or food or
other miscellaneous items we’d find what
makes us feel most at home and we glue
them onto our cardboard now if you were
to look at me and Steve’s piece of
artwork you would see a bunch of
miscellaneous items strewn about the
cardboard but if you look closely you
will see two identical cutouts of tater
tots pasted proudly on the piece this
was not planned was not discussed and
was not discovered until after we’d
already glued them on there you also see
on ours as well as most others the great
unifier soccer the sport that crosses
all boundaries and just like Noah I had
a partner for this art project and his
name was Eric and he’s who I talked
about earlier Eric and I had a lot in
common like Steven Noah but the thing
that surprised me the most and still
makes me smile to this day is the fact
that before I even had a chance to put
anything on this poster Eric had already
put a picture of LeBron James’s face
onto the poster now LeBron James is
someone who a lot of Ohioans identified
with someone who defines our home and
Eric who was born on another continent
in a refugee camp identifies LeBron
James as his home just like many of us
and I do now LeBron James and tater tots
and soccer may seem irrelevant but these
similarities persists despite thousands
of miles between our places of birth and
that shows just how connected we really
are well the things on the surface like
where we were born
what cultures we grew up around may be
different when you peel the layers away
and the deeper you get really not that
different at all
and while LeBron James might not seem
like it’s that close to the core in
reality it is
because Eric and I find LeBron James and
the Cavs is part of our home and you
can’t get much closer to the core than
your home and despite all of our
superficial differences as humans we all
crave this idea of home this desire to
have a home as with Spencer and I have
found is at the heart of all people rich
or poor man or woman black or white
everyone craves a place to feel welcomed
people who understand them in a place
they can truly call their home in
through a group we also like to work for
advocacy because we believe that talking
about the issue is just as important as
working with the refugees and and if
you’ve even remotely paid attention to
the political climate in the current
events in the past couple of years you
know this issue is extremely relevant
and with all of the hatred in the
widespread distrust of the refugee
population a little bit of acceptance
and a little bit of kindness can go a
long way and this is true not just with
the issue of refugees but with many of
our plenty of any of the issues that
plague our country and in inner world
and the steps to solve many of these
problems are just they’re simple acts of
kindness these acts of kindness aren’t
hard either Spencer I did not create a
Million Man March and setting up a
couple of soccer games or a cookout or
an art project for group of people does
not take a rocket scientist it only
takes the amount of time it takes to
send a couple of text messages or make a
couple of phone calls but it could make
all the difference in the world for
someone who is struggling to feel
welcome in the new home he was
marginalized or who just feels lonely
well we’re all human and the people in
our program crave a home in a community
to be a part of just like everybody else
here and we knew that we were making an
impact on these people when our
get-togethers they were only supposed to
last until 9:00 lasted until midnight
and this happened more than once the
tangible buzz of the joy and the
excitement that was present in at these
gatherings showed that we were giving
them a home now our initial intentions
was with this program we’re not all
quite as noble as you may think as
seniors in high school we’re required to
do a social justice
project that had some kind of real-world
implementation and we thought hey this
would be great for that and what we
certainly did love the idea of giving
back to the community and doing
something good
it was also a way to fulfill this
requirement and maybe put something good
in a resume we had our own intentions as
anybody would but as the blessings of
our programs started to come out we
started to feel good for doing it and we
started to see that the community in the
home that we had that we had started and
become part of and if we had a chance to
do this over again without any thought
of a senior a senior project or any
resume we would do it again in a
heartbeat
our involvement in this program is hope
has helped to open our minds and our
hearts in a way we could not imagine
more than just learning about the issue
of refugees we have come to know the
people behind the statistics and the
home that we have helped to build for
them has become a home for us as well
because in the end even those who are
most different from us at their core
just crave a home in a community and in
the end they are just like us thank you [Applause]