From refugee to aspiring nurse: Sodexo’s Hari Bhattara

Hari Bhattarai’s childhood was, by any standard, extraordinarily difficult: At four years old, ethnic and religious conflicts forced his family to leave their home in Bhutan, a small country in the Himalayas nestled between China and India. They were sent to a refugee camp in Nepal, where he and his siblings spent the next 17 years. 

All seven family members shared a small hut consisting of a kitchen, bedroom and living room. They were not allowed to leave the camp, but with the aid of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Caritas, a social service organization, Hari and his siblings received an English-language education.   

Hari remembers fondly that his “classroom” was actually atop tree saddles — at least on sunny days. “As kids, we were happy when it rained because then the school was closed,” he says with a laugh. 

Life at the camp was not easy for Hari’s parents, who tried to eke out a living to feed the family. The camp provided them with meager supplies, like a small portion of rice and some firewood for cooking, so his father left camp to take on construction jobs and make a little money to provide for their basic needs. They had to make do with what they had. 

The family hoped to be repatriated home, but without success. Then one day, in 2006, a U.S. delegate came to the camps. With the help of UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the refugees were given the option of migrating to several countries, including the United States, Australia, Canada, Denmark, New Zealand, the U.K. and the Netherlands. Hari, then 20 years old, decided to go to the U.S. with his older brother. He saw it as an opportunity of a lifetime, a chance to make their lives better. 

Thus began the process of immigrating to a country he knew very little about, and randomly to a city he only learned about two days before he flew there.

Hari says:

Hari and his brother arrived in North Dakota in November of 2008, followed by the rest of his family a few months later. It was challenging in the beginning, Hari says, but the community helped. Lutheran Social Services provided three months of rent, and they applied for food stamps through the county. 

I have immense respect for this community, Hari says. People from church came and asked how they can help. I didn't have a car. It was November, December, and the temperature was -30, -40 degrees. I walked to get a gallon of milk and carried in my hand all the things I needed from the store. I'm really thankful that people in this community stopped at times to pick me up from the middle of the road.

Today, Hari, now a father of two, works for Sodexo as custodial operations manager at Altru Health. He’s also finishing a nursing program and hopes to go into management. 

Working in healthcare is a personal passion, having seen so many people suffer. It’s his path to giving back for all the help he’s gotten. And as busy as his life is now — holding a full-time job, taking care of his family and his mother, going to nursing school full time — he remembers the struggle of his early years, and he knows all the hard work is worth it. 

"My biggest advice to anyone pursuing a dream is to keep going. Yes, there will be difficulties, and there will be times when you don’t want to do it, Hari says. When I was young, I once had a teacher who said that life is a journey between B and D — Birthday and Death. In between B and C is the letter C. That is Choice. You make your own choice in which direction you want your life to go."