Je’Miah was raising her younger sister in 2013 when she lost her job and her home. However, she didn’t lose hope or her determination to get herself on the path to a better future. She moved in with her brother and took two jobs, working half days at a call center and nights...

“My family spent 17 years in a refugee camp in Nepal before we arrived in Chicago when I was 18.” That’s how Narayan, who was born in Bhutan, explains his childhood. For the next five years the family lived with relatives, worked and relied on Chicago’s public transit system.