CLEVELAND — According to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, Cleveland has been seeing more refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo. A northeast Ohio refugee center is making sure those refugees have help adjusting to their new home. 

What You Need To Know

  • The May Dugan Center refugee center is helping refugees transition to life in Cleveland    

  • Cleveland has seen more refugees come from the Democratic Republic of Congo

  • Odine Kahindo came to Cleveland from Congo and now helps new refugees at the May Dugan Center 

Odine Kahindo sings when she has free time. She said it calms her down and is something she loved back home in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Now Kahindo works at the May Dugan Center, processing a growing number of refugee families coming from Congo because of crime and civil unrest.

“I do help with translation because I’m lucky that I speak nine languages,” she said.

Kahindo came to Cleveland as a refugee herself from Congo.

“Safety, the country at the moment, there is a lot of prosecution going on, the killing, and it was not safe for anybody, and our parents felt like it was not good for the kids, every day war running day and night,” she said.

Struggling to make it here, after an 11 year wait at a refugee camp in Uganda, Kahindo said she then made it her mission to help others feel comfort away from home.

“There is transportation, if a family want to go for cultural shopping buying food always ready to take them around the shops that I know, show them how to buy, show them how they buy, show them how to pay with a credit card, it’s their first time,” she said.

Kahindo has been working here since September of last year.

Lucy Linares, the manager of the refugee resettlement and placement program at the May Dugan Center, said it’s important for people like Kahindo to be doing this job.

“Because she speaks Swahili, certainly is able to make a connection with those folks that are speakers of Swahili. I think we have a very good team, diverse team, and they all bring something very special to the table,” she said.

In 2023 46% of all refugees who came to Ohio were from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kahindo bought additional beds for refugees as more are expected to come to Cleveland.

“They always appreciate it every single time. Some of them call you, some of them offer a meal,” she said.

While Kahindo doesn’t have her own kids, she considers these young refugees to be her children.

“They will cry whenever I am about to leave. When they see me they are just jumping on my neck. It makes me feel special,” she said.