2022-100-Faces-Book - Flipbook - Page 31
Gatluak
Convener. Builder. Peacemaker.
Gatluak came to the U.S. as a refugee from South
Sudan. As a child, he and his family left their home and
moved to a refugee camp without clean drinking water
and other basic needs. He was taken from his family
and forced to serve as a child soldier at six years old.
“It was a long journey and a devastating situation.”
10 years, she was still living in an encampment. The
two married and he brought her to Nashville, teaching
her English in their apartment. Neighbors started to
hear how he could teach English, so they came to their
home for lessons. These lessons became a space to
explore what it meant to be a refugee and how they
could work together to help their neighbors.
Eventually, Gatluak reunited with his father and brother
and they moved from camp to camp before coming to
South Dakota and then Nashville.
In 2005, Gatluak and a group of refugee leaders and
native-born Nashvillians founded an organization that
helps immigrant communities overcome barriers.
“I did not have an education at the time when I came
here. I didn’t know how to do anything.”
“That’s the beginning of the Nashville International
Center for Empowerment (NICE).”
He was living in East Nashville and working across
the river at the Opryland Hotel. He’d take the bus from
East Nashville to downtown to Murfreesboro Road to
Opryland to work, but at night on his way home, the
bus didn’t make those stops. He’d take the bus back to
Murfreesboro Road and would walk from I-24 to I-65.
“Then, I had to look for a funder.” That’s where United
Way stepped in.
“That was a really challenging thing, and I did that for
many, many months. My brother and I decided to buy
a vehicle but at the time we didn’t speak English … did
not write English. There was a lot of challenges that
we had. But what else can you do? We needed to have
a means of transportation. When we bought a car, I
had to be the driver without knowing how to drive and
without having a driver’s license or the insurance.”
Gatluak decided to learn English. He received his high
school diploma, then went on to earn an undergrad
degree and his master’s in public service. He was
ready to find someone to share his life with.
“I was going to school and I was working full-time. I
didn’t socialize. I [couldn’t] just go to anyone and say,
‘Can I marry you?’ ”
He remembered a girl he loved as a young boy in
South Sudan, so he asked his family to find her. After
“Through NICE, refugees and immigrants who
have lived through marginalization, exclusion and
entrenched discrimination in their homeland are able
to rebuild their lives with dignity here,” he says.
With Gatluak now as president and CEO, NICE
serves nearly 3,000 people from more than 72
different nationalities.
“We became a model that people in the community
and outside wanted to adapt. It enriched my life.
It made part of my mission of giving back to the
community and really giving back to people who have
done nice for me. I have been a part of the community
trying to figure out how we can move forward, how we
can empower those that are here and try to connect
all the dots. They have to support themselves, their
family, the community but you cannot unless you have
a means of communication. That’s one of the things
that we wanted to make sure that our clients have:
accessibility to language. The greatest gift this country
offers to refugees and immigrants is that of agency,
the ability to make decisions about their own lives.”
Nashville International Center for Empowerment
