Born in Rwanda and with family origins in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Fidele Mugisha (BSBA ’21) had only known life as a refugee when he and his family arrived in North Carolina with just the clothes on their backs. Amid the loss of family and friends, his parents emphasized education’s importance: “When you flee from one country to another, you don’t have anything tangible to hold onto. The only thing that you have is knowledge and no one can take knowledge away from you.” He worked and studied hard, learning English (his sixth language). He enrolled at a community college before he transferred to UNC Kenan-Flagler, where he thrived: “UNC Kenan-Flagler is a family. It’s a community,” he says. “It gave me things I never thought possible.”
