As refugees, she helped her family prosper, and hopes to become a doctor to support others.
When her family immigrated to the USA, Clairette Kirezi became a second mother to her parents.
She is just 10 years old. Her mother fled poverty and political unrest in Rwanda, left her two daughters in Georgia with family friends, and returned to the Central African country to finalize their plans for their departure.
“I had to grow up fast and take care of my sister,” Kirezi said. “It was a struggle to learn English and experience a new culture and live without my mother.”
Five months later her mother returned to Georgia, moved the family to Portland and later enrolled her daughters at the Greater Portland Christian School in South Portland, where Kirezi is her class’s Valedictorian. Kirezi’s dad stayed in Rwanda.
Kirezi ‘s family initially lived in homeless shelters and eventually settled in Westbrook. Her mother, who had been pregnant before she left Rwanda, bore her younger brother shortly after she arrived in Maine.
Kirezi took care of her siblings when she was not in school, so that her mother could study to become a certified nursing assistant and work as a caregiver for adults with disabilities. She came to realize it was a huge burden.
“It became second nature to me,” she said. “Everyone does what they have to do. I don’t resent it. It has prepared me for the next step in my life.”
At school, she participated in soccer, basketball, drama and chapel worship. “Faith is a big part of my life,” she said. “God is what keeps me going. God is always watching over me.”
Kirezi, 19, also worked as a volunteer at the American Red Cross blood drive center twice a week, taking algebra and physics classes at Southern Maine Community College.
A four-year honor student, she was accepted into the University of Pittsburgh’s pre-med programme. She plans to become a doctor and open a hospital and school in Rwanda so that she can train others in her native country to improve the medical care.
But now, Kirezi said, Maine is her home, and she is grateful that her mother took the risk of bringing her family here.
“Coming here was the best decision for our family,” she said. “My mother sacrificed her life for us. I’m going places I never thought I’d go. I wouldn’t change a single thing. It’s the path that God wanted for me.”
