Most IRC staff and clients in Missoula are familiar with Nolasque Balitebya’s dedicated work ethic, positive attitude, and infectious laugh. In February, Nolasque began winding down his Caseworker duties with the IRC in Missoula tying up loose ends, crossing his t’s and dotting his i’s in his casefiles. Where is he off to next? IRC Headquarters! As a Roving Direct Services Program Manager for IRC’s Reception and Placement (R&P) programs, he will now be deployed to support R&P casework staff in Florida, Georgia, California, Texas, and Arizona. He will remain based in Missoula and work remotely from here, while traveling up to 70% of the time to support offices.

Perhaps a little known fact is that Nolasque was the IRC in Missoula staff member with the longest uninterrupted tenure. Shortly after arriving in 2019, his fluency in English enabled him to support IRC staff with resettlement services, such as airport pickups, on a volunteer basis at first. He quickly applied and was hired as an Interpreter a few months later. The staff was much smaller then, and he enthusiastically took every opportunity to help deliver core casework services to newly arriving refugee families in Missoula, especially through the COVID-19 pandemic. In spring 2021, he became a full-time Caseworker and he ends his time with the Missoula office as a Senior Caseworker.

Before he took up this new role, we had a chance to speak with Nolasque to learn more about his journey to this exciting new chapter in his professional career.

Nolasque and his family were meant to travel to the US in 2017, but were delayed by new policies from the presidential administration at the time. They were to travel from Kampala, the capital city of Uganda, where he and his wife and children had been living as urban refugees. Per Uganda’s policies, when his family fled from the Democratic Republic of Congo into Uganda, they were given the choice between staying in a refugee camp or moving to an urban area where humanitarian support would not be available. Equipped with two masters degrees in French and African Linguistics, a degree in Philosophy, and his fluency in English, he and his family decided to go to Kampala. He opened a learning center to teach French and Swahili punctuated intermittently by providing translation and interpretation services. His students were mainly foreign professionals and tourists in the area, and he was able to make ends meet this way. Their travel to the US was finally rescheduled almost two years later.

"I remember it well. We arrived on February 28th in the US, the land of opportunity. We spent the night in a fancy hotel in Houston, Texas. It was March 1st, 2019 around 4 pm on a Friday when we landed in Missoula."

IRC staff were there to greet them at the airport and took them to an apartment that IRC had secured a lease for and furnished prior to their arrival after a long and tiring journey. Nolasque recalls IRC staff giving him and his family a housing safety orientation, a standard part of IRC’s core service procedures to ensure newly arriving families can safely use all the features of a home, like heating and cooling systems, light switches, door and window locks, microwaves, and refrigerators. After that, his family was left to catch up on some much needed sleep.

One week later, the IRC took Nolasque to the Lifelong Learning Center to be enrolled in ESL classes, another standard core service of the resettlement process. At this time, no one had fully realized that he was fluent in English! He recalls the ESL instructor commenting that he spoke English very well, and he agreed! He took an exam to measure his reading and writing skills and got a perfect score. He recalls, with humor, being told that he didn’t have to come back to class.

Even with fluency in English and advanced degrees, refugees face an uphill battle finding employment opportunities that are in line with their professional backgrounds and skill sets, as most degrees and credentials are not recognized in the US. With the employment placement support of JobService through Missoula’s TANF Program, Nolasque got his first full-time job as a warehouse picker for a distribution company; a job he was grateful for and did to the best of his ability. In June 2019, he was hired at the IRC as a Swahili interpreter and thus began his IRC career.

His family worked together and relied on his English language skills as they acclimated to doing things independently, such as grocery shopping, learning the bus system, and navigating life in a new place. When it came time for financial assistance through the IRC and public benefits to end, his family had a meeting to plan out how they’d were going to meet their financial obligations. They decided rent must be prioritized, then food. They all agreed to forget about luxury and extras while they worked to earn money and budget it carefully together.

From when they fled the Democratic Republic of Congo to now, Nolasque’s persevering optimism and refusal to let circumstances dictate his outlook on life have been central to who he is and how he and his family have approached each challenge.

"As a refugee, you've fled your country, you've spent years of your life in another country and you don't know what the future holds. You must claim back your life.

You must transfer that fear into fuel and become the CEO of your own life.

Nobody can make you happy, you must make yourself happy. Be happy doing whatever you have in your hand."

He is definitely looking forward to his new role with IRC HQ. 

"What is special about the IRC as an organization is that it is the oldest humanitarian organization. I used to see this [IRC] logo in Uganda on cars driving around. I was astonished to see the IRC symbol in Missoula when I got here. Working for IRC is paying it forward. I like the mandate and passion to help people as they rebuild people’s lives and help them be who they are. The IRC began my roots in America, and that is why I am excited to serve the IRC to the best of my abilities."

We wish Nolasque well on this next step in his career and thank him for his many years of service supporting newly arrived refugees in Missoula.