Samba

This is my older brother, Issam. I met him for the first time in my life in May of this year. He’s 28 years old.

Taking my brother out to a nice dinner in Marrakesh. I gave him my “Wakanda” basketball jersey and Jalaba to wear.

So many emotions came to the surface meeting him and getting to hear his story. We share the same dad but I was born 5 years after him and by then his house and ours were very separate.

His mom lives in Dakar, Senegal where he grew up before moving to Morocco last year. My mom on the other hand moved us from Mboro, Senegal to Ashland, Oregon in 2004 before Issam (or “Samba”) and I had a chance to properly meet.

For work, he takes the train to Marrakesh to buy and sell decorative glassware. Earlier this month, during the earthquake, all the glass he was selling shattered from the tremors. The entire inventory is gone. He lost everything.

I own a company that helps people get jobs and when I spoke to him on the phone the other day he asked me if he could move to San Francisco to live with me. Maybe he could work at upskill. Maybe my company could help him get a job.

It broke my heart.

Making Ataaya: a distinctly Senegalese tea from green tea, jasmine, and mint.

I know how hard it is for non-US citizens to find work here, or even be granted a VISA to enter the country. I know how hard it is for people like my brother who never finished college to find well-paying jobs.

In the US, our system makes it virtually impossible to get a job that pays a good living wage unless you go to an Ivy League school and gain corporate experience early on. At the same time, the system makes it unbearably hard to find out how to get accepted into those spaces.

“No feedback” policies. <5% recruiter response rates. Applicant pools of 5,000+ for entry-level roles.

If my brother did move here and applied to 500 salaries jobs. He might hear back from 10. The majority would say no without any further guidance: “Good luck kid”.

Our system wasn’t built to help people who lack a certain pedigree.

For my brother and all the other “Issam”s out there, I want to change that.

I believe in a system where upward mobility is a possibility, not a pipe dream. One that gives people hope. One that gives people a sense of purpose again. One that brings us closer together.

We’re building that new system at upskill.

Learn more at https://www.connectupskill.com