From refugee camp to Marshall Scholar: UK grad wants to aid those who come after her
Chimene Ntakarutimana was “too shocked to cry” when she found out she’d won one of the most selective scholarships in the country.
The recently graduated University of Kentucky student spent six years of her childhood in a refugee camp in Zambia after her family fled genocide in their native Burundi. So, when she found out she’d been named a Marshall Scholar — one of nearly 50 U.S. students annually who get their tuition-free pick of graduate schools in the United Kingdom — Ntakarutimana had to tell her family.
“Getting to see their excitement was more rewarding for me than anything else because my goal is to make sure that they’re proud of all the work that I’m doing and that their sacrifices mean something,” Ntakarutimana said.
Ntakarutimana will be the sixth UK student to ever receive the award and the first since 2014. She’ll attend University College London aiming to get two master’s degrees.
“We will be excited to watch Chimene continue to make her mark on the world as she pursues graduate studies in migration in the United Kingdom as our sixth Wildcat to be named a Marshall Scholar,” said UK President Eli Capilouto in a release.
Another student with Kentucky ties will also receive one of the scholarships this year. Quinn O’Loane of Prospect, who is graduating from the Naval Academy, will attend the University of York to pursue a master’s degree in international relations. According to a release, after he finishes his graduate studies, O’Loane will report to Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Fla., where he go into flight training en route to becoming an aviator.
The sacrifices of Ntakarutimana’s parents and the long, demanding journey of moving an entire family to the U.S. inspired her scholarly interests, she said. As a child in East Africa, she said she remembers the constant traveling and her parent’s anxiety.
After six years in a refugee camp, they were finally approved to move to the United States and their family of six was placed in a one-bedroom apartment in Chicago. Both of Ntakarutimana’s parents picked up two jobs to make ends meet, while her older sister — who was 9 at the time — held sway over kids who were 7, 3 and less than a year old.
At a young age, Ntakarutimana said she and her sister functioned as the sort of spokespeople for their family. Because of a language barrier, that the kids were able to navigate a bit faster they had to learn much about what it took to fill-out official paperwork related to school and taxes and explain it to their parents.
When Ntakarutimana was a fourth grader, the family moved to Lexington where she would eventually graduate from Tates Creek High School.
“School has always been the place where I felt the most seen,” Ntakarutimana said. “Especially growing up, it was really hard for people to understand me with my accent. So I work really, really hard to assimilate, in a way.”
A big reader, Ntakarutimana was able to quickly expand her range of English — the third language she learned as a child. Afraid of coming off as different to other kids, she said she tried to learn new concepts privately.
Ntakarutimana was able to graduate from UK in May with degrees in sociology and psychology and multiple international research opportunities. Off campus, she volunteered with Ampersand Sexual Violence Resource Center of the Bluegrass and worked as an administrative coordinator at Kentucky Refugee Ministries.
Pat Whitlow, the director for UK’s office of nationally competitive awards, who has known Ntakarutimana for much of her time at UK described her as “smart, hardworking and delightful. She’s everything you would want in a student.”
“She’s really reached out and helped other people,” Whitlow said. “And has continued to do that for her entire college career.”
At University College London, she’s aiming to obtain two master’s degrees and with both she’s hoping to one day be able to influence migration policy.
With a degree in forced migration, Ntakarutimana wants to find ways to help refugees deal with their trauma in the years they may spend in a refugee camp. With another master’s gender, society and population representation, she hopes to learn how one’s gender or sexuality might influence migration to a new country.
Ntakarutimana said she’s driven to work hard so she can one day give back and potentially help those who may be in situations similar to hers in the future.
“There’s so many refugees and immigrants that are so smart, that have all these ideas and without the right people in their lives, they don’t get to where I am,” she said. “So sometimes I just feel like it’s luck,where you end up, because I can be the one still back there, and somebody else could be in my place.”
Ntakarutimana said she’s also driven to tear down the harmful stereotypes about refugees and immigrants that permeate western society. One of the most dangerous of those stereotypes, she said, is that immigrants take without giving back or are in search of hand-outs. Through her education she’s seen that research does not bear out that assumption but through her own family’s hard work she’s known that’s been untrue for some time.
The Marshall Scholarship program was established by a 1953 act of the British Parliament and was meant as a symbol of gratitude from the United Kingdom for the United States’ aid in helping to rebuild the country and Europe through the post-World War II Marshall Plan.
This story was originally published December 7, 2020 at 11:29 AM.