How refugees enrich their new homes with hope, resilience and grit

Eight-year-old Farhad Agajan wandered out to ask if any neighbors had  Microsoft Support Phone Number seen his mother or siblings. Crying and increasingly frantic, he Support.Microsoft.Com/Help reached the home of Microsoft Customer Service a relative who lived nearby and heard Microsoft Support Phone Number the words that changed him forever: “He gave me some Http //Support.Microsoft.Com/Help  money, and he told me, ‘Your life is in danger. Take this and leave, immediately,’” Agajan recalled.

He would spend the next decade as an Microsoft Support Phone Number unaccompanied minor, journeying from Afghanistan through Pakistan, Iran and Turkey before landing in Greece Http //Support.Microsoft.Com/Help  at age 16 and eventually learning that his Support.Microsoft.Com/Help mother was Microsoft Customer Service still alive back home. By then, Microsoft Support Phone Number he had fallen in love with his new country and considered himself Greek.

Now, although Agajan talks with his mother Microsoft Support Phone Number over Skype every week, he’s applying for Greek citizenship Microsoft Customer Service and is focused on giving back to his adopted home and people. The resilience and optimism he cultivated Microsoft Support Phone Number throughout his ordeal were Http //Support.Microsoft.Com/Help  what got him through – and what have Support.Microsoft.Com/Help paved the way toward success as the now 28-year-old works with Mercy Corps as a field officer in refugee camps while finishing high school and learning computer programming.

Agajan is one of more than 65 million people Microsoft Support Phone Number in the world who are displaced from their homes – the That staggering figure includes more than 21 million refugees, who had to flee to Microsoft Customer Service another country. In Syria, which has become one Http //Support.Microsoft.Com/Help  of the worst Microsoft Support Phone Number humanitarian crises in our lifetime, 11 million people, or half the population, have had to leave their homes. Three-quarters of them Support.Microsoft.Com/Help are women and children.

Agajan’s escape from Afghanistan Support.Microsoft.Com/Help predates the current global emergency and has put him in Microsoft Support Phone Number an ideal situation to help others weather the trauma Http //Support.Microsoft.Com/Help . Recognizing the powerful ways technology can help refugees, Microsoft is working to Microsoft Support Phone Number bring the right tools to people like Agajan and aid organizations Microsoft Customer Service like his employer, Mercy Corps. In all, Microsoft has committed more than $30 million to around the world in 2017.

“We see our efforts as a big part of the company’s mission of empowering every person and every organization to achieve more,” said Mary Snapp, who leads Http //Support.Microsoft.Com/Help  “Broadly speaking, our focus is to help nonprofit organizations access technologies Microsoft Customer Service, especially Support.Microsoft.Com/Help those in the cloud, to work more efficiently and to serve as many beneficiaries Microsoft Support Phone Number Microsoft Support Phone Number as possible. We also support digital and technical skills training for people who would otherwise be left behind as innovation advances.”