Fighting Poverty With Jobs

Source: The Philadelphia Citizen Published: March 17th, 2021

Camden-based Hopeworks is expanding its job training and placement mission with an eye to fighting regional poverty, hundreds of jobs at a time.

Listening to Marcel Njighe-Tezeh (pictured above) tell his story, one hears the American dream come to life.

In 2016, at 17, he left his home in Cameroon, West Africa, and travelled to America using scholarship money he won while in high school. He settled in Camden with a family friend whom he’d never even met in-person before coming to the States.

“After graduation, I would sit at home thinking of where I’m going to get a job [and] America was the best choice,” Njighe-Tezeh says. “I know maybe someone that was born in America and who has always been in America will not understand, but outside of America, we call America the land of opportunities and possibilities. So one of the drives for me was to just get out there, go to America and achieve my goals.”

As he tells it, Njighe-Tezeh left Cameroon because he felt there were no opportunities for him. In high school, he studied accounting and he planned to continue his studies by going to college in America; but the scholarship money only covered the costs oftravelingto the U.S., not studying here.

Months after arriving in the U.S., Njighe-Tezeh was working in a warehouse, still looking for opportunities to launch his career. As an accounting student, he had learned to follow and understand trends, and he saw that the tech industry was a field with tons of employment opportunities. He just needed the skills to get a job.

His interest in technology and a Google search led him to Hopeworks, the 22-year-old Camden-based nonprofit that offers job training and employment in tech to young people aged 17 to 26. Thanks to that training, Njighe-Tezeh is now a full-time IT specialist with the Philadelphia Parking Authority.