United Refugee Services

United Refugee services was founded by samuel uwimana, a former refugee from east africa whose center now creates hope and faith in northeast area of amarillo.

“When people see what I have accomplished, they wonder how. But my experiences have shaped me,” says Samuel Uwimana, the 26-year-old founder of United Refugee Services. “I give credit to those harsh past experiences.”

Samuel runs a community center at 24th Avenue and Grand Street, where he welcomes fellow refugees who live in Amarillo and Dumas. He speaks six languages and helps them navigate public services and resources. He serves as a role model for youth in detention centers. He teaches Congolese women how to drive. 

This energetic young man is so effective at his work because he’s experienced it all himself: Samuel and his family arrived in Amarillo in 2018. Prior to that, they had spent two decades—most of Samuel’s life—as refugees displaced across the Congo, Rwanda and Kenya.

His story is harrowing. Part of the Banyamulenge ethnic group from the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Samuel’s father grazed cattle. His mother is from Rwanda. Samuel was the youngest of eight children, and he was born around the time the Second Congo War was becoming one of the globe’s deadliest conflicts since World War II. Their family ended up in Nairobi, Kenya, as refugees—and then Samuel’s father died. Samuel was 13 at the time. He had just been admitted to a prestigious school on a scholarship, but was forced to drop out to provide for his family.

He spent months selling sausages and boiled eggs on the streets of Nairobi before finding his way back into the educational system. Then in 2014, when Samuel was 16, local persecution of the Banyamulenge people resulted in Kenyan soldiers surrounding his church. At gunpoint, they jailed him and his family. After three days in prison, they were transferred to Dadaab near the Somali border. Dadaab, at the time, was the largest refugee camp in the world and a symbol of the refugee crisis. It was notorious for poor sanitation, food insecurity and for spawning Islamic militants. 

Samuel and his family were in the extreme minority as Christians. 

“It was terrifying,” he remembers. The family spent two weeks with little to no food. They feared being slaughtered at night—trapped inside a tent—so they slept outside “in the sand with the bugs, looking up to the moon,” Samuel says. When food trucks arrived, adults would race children to receive it. “We were dying. Everyone was fighting for their own lives.”

(Samuel tells this story in full in The Unbeatable Uwimana, a picture book published by Refugee Language Project.)

When circumstances finally gave him a new start in Amarillo, he was determined to pursue his education and become a leader. His first American job was at the Tyson plant. He earned his GED, and obtained medical certifications in phlebotomy and EKG assistant. During the pandemic, he worked alongside Amarillo Public Health interpreting for Congolese and other African people. With Catholic Charities, he has mentored refugee students, and at Eastridge Elementary School, he helped Congolese parents navigate the school system. He even launched a refugee soccer tournament last year at Caprock High School.

Samuel is now a U.S. citizen—as are the members of his family—and says his multicultural community center gives him an opportunity to pay it forward for immigrants, refugees and others living in one of the city’s most under-resourced zip codes. “We are open to everyone,” he says.

In his family’s original language, Samuel’s name, “Uwimana,” means “God’s son.” He believes God has shown up in his life, making a way for him despite his suffering. That suffering took place across the ocean, but today residents of our city benefit from his unbridled energy, enthusiasm, work ethic and humor. He’s now a son of the Panhandle, and we are better for it.