Provider Pulse Ep. 14 (2): In the Shadow of War, Toward the Light of Opportunity: Daniella Runyambo's Story (Part 2)

We continue our Provider Pulse interview series where we elevate diverse voices from across healthcare fields to hear the paths people took to their current roles and how their life experiences shape the care they provide.

In the second part of this two-part episode, we continue our conversation with Daniella Runyambo, co-executive director of Programs and Community Impact at the Refugee Community Partnership, we follow her journey into adulthood. Daniella reflects on her college years in Maine, the challenges of balancing education with family responsibilities, and the pivotal experiences that shaped her career path. She shares how becoming a mother — and facing bias in the healthcare system during childbirth — transformed her perspective and fueled her commitment to advocacy. Today, Daniella leads efforts to ensure immigrant and refugee families can navigate healthcare systems with dignity and support.

Whether you are a pre-health student, a practicing clinician, or someone interested in how personal history shapes professional identity, Daniella’s story will be a source of inspiration.

Visit EthnoMed.org for additional resources. Follow us on YouTube and Instagram @EthnoMedUW

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro Quote from Daniella Runyambo
• 0:28 Podcast Introduction, Part 1 Recap, Today's Arc
• 1:28 Finding Belonging on Campus at the University of Maine
• 3:24 U.S. vs Central African education
• 5:53 First-year Struggle, then Recovery
• 7:58 School While Working Full-Time, Family Responsibilities
• 10:09 Choosing Biology as a Major; Father's Influence
• 12:01 Post-Graduation Skills Gap and Pivot
• 16:16 Breakthrough at Duke; Research Job and Publications
• 18:32 Maternal Health Crisis and Systemic Bias
• 22:15 Building the Language Navigator Program
• 24:05 Zion Today: Joy, Music, and Navigating the World as a Blind Child
• 26:45 "Why Not Us?": Reframing Family Purpose and Resilience
• 28:47 Advice to Her Younger Self: Pause, Reflect, Mentor
• 33:18 Honor Small Jobs; Gain Skills from Every Role
• 36:06 Becoming co-Executive Director (co-ED); Seeing Leadership in Herself
• 38:35 Work Ethic as Leadership; Importance of Authenticity
• 42:09 Gratitude, Importance of Mentorship
• 44:19 Outro and Closing Reflections of Part 2
• 44:44 Next Episode Preview, Dr. Ethan Hua
• 45:34 Credits and Contact Information

Transcript

06_28_2025 Daniella Runyambo

[00:00:00] 

Daniella: When I got to college. I kind of relaxed a little bit too much Because this, it was a fight, fight, fight. Oh I don't have to fight. Oh, relaxed. And, and that I regret. because the difference between the American education and the Central African education is that in the US everybody has potential to do great, but it takes some self-discipline.

If you're disciplined enough, it doesn't matter your capacity, you can achieve greatness.

Duncan: Welcome back to the Ethno Med Podcast, a community voice in the clinic. I'm Dr. Duncan Reid, physician at Harborview Medical Center's International Medicine Clinic and Medical Director of EthnoMed. We continue our provider Pulse interview series where we elevate diverse voices from across healthcare fields to hear the paths people took to their current roles and how their life experiences shape the care they provide. 

This is part two of my conversation with Daniella Runyambo, co-Executive Director of Programs and Community Impact at the Refugee Community Partnership in North [00:01:00] Carolina. In part one, Daniella shared her journey from a childhood in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda to life as a teenager in Maine.

 Today we pick up with our transition into college, the challenges of balancing school and family responsibilities and the powerful personal experiences including navigating bias in maternal healthcare that has shaped her path to leadership and refugee health advocacy.

Feel free to go back to part one or continue listening to part two.

Daniella: So I wind up going to University of Maine. 

Duncan: How was that experience?

Daniella: That's when the fun part began. It was different. It was fun. Coming here at 16, I had enough personality to not be dragged down by the system that was placed and the barriers that was placed for me.

So, the fight that I went through in high school was enough fight for me to know that I belong even in spaces where it wasn't seeming that way. So when I went to college, I was ready to fight [00:02:00] again, but it was different there. a lot of Mainers don't pursue higher education, so there was a lot of international students and international students from Africa.

We had Nigerian. Friends and friends from Ghana, friend from Cameroon, from Senegal, friends from Nepal, India, like, so there was a lot of international students who were on full scholarship were there and they had a different background than us. so that helped a lot. So I came with that zeal of fighting, but when I got there I was like, wait a second, I don't need to fight.

I belong here and I can do best here. So, I remember the first orientation day, that's when I met my best friend, who's now actually a medical doctor who was doing her residency in Utah. Roselle Garcia. She was from the Philippines, I remember, we're the same age. We were coming from the same background.

She was coming from the Philippine at the time I was coming , from Congo, and we both couldn't speak English. We were both like, we had different personality, but one thing that we're very proud of, is our [00:03:00] background. We're unapologetic about who we were. So that helped a lot and we found solidarity and comfort in navigating those systems together.

 And then we met other international students and that was easy. We were doing same major. So just knowing that you have an ally through this journey was important. So I found allyship what I would say there was different because my, experience in high school was a lot of fighting.

When I got to college. I kind of relaxed a little bit too much 

Because this, it was a fight, fight, fight. Oh, I can't fight. I don't have to fight. Oh, relaxed. And, and that I regret. Because the difference between the American education and the Central African education is that in the US everybody has potential to do great, but it takes some self-discipline.

If you're disciplined enough, it doesn't matter your capacity, you can achieve greatness. 

Meaning you can be what we call a C student or B student. A student. but the difference between c student and a students, like the, A student might not have to work as [00:04:00] hard as the C student.

But if you know your, level and you have potential, if you're disciplined enough to take advantage of all the support system and work hard. You can both do great and having that mental capacity, being smart, what we call smart in the African way, like maybe you know more.

And having that, type of advantage, doesn't guarantee you success here in the US because you have to be disciplined enough and working hard enough to achieve and back home it's the opposite. Back home you have to have skill like I'm telling you, intellectual skill to achieve anything because first of all, a system, you can't get a in an exam. It doesn't matter hard you try because it's almost like they, it's not an acceptable grade. So a lot of, like the highest note in our class will be 70%. So achieving success was like getting a C in a class, what we call a C here in a classroom.

And if a teacher teaches and give you tests [00:05:00] that you get eighties and nineties, it speaks, down to their teaching method. And they're not good enough teachers and they need to make things impossible. So you are had to be skillful. To do good in Africa, you don't have to study more.

You don't have to like develop this study hard no, you just have to be really skillful. You can sit because lot of things that we are learning with theories anyways, not a lot of school were equipped enough to have labs and things like that. So it's theory. So how much can you memorize? How much can you take in your mind?

How much can you, that skill for you to memorize these things, which in America is like, we give you all the knowledge. How self-disciplined are you and working hard to now get this knowledge on your own, which is a skill that we didn't learn back home. So I felt like in high school I'd also gained those skills because I was too much fighting against the system.

And the classes, I started in 10th grade, so I already had a good background. So a lot of the things that I was learning was a repeat for me. So I was [00:06:00] passing because I had the knowledge and I went with that same mindset in college. And I felt miserable.  The first, the first year I really did terrible the first year.

and I start catching up the second year. And then the third year I catch up and the fourth year I I caught up. But had a hard time the first year. And it wasn't until I met some international students who were like doing greatness. then I was like, wait a second, what am I doing?

But I caught myself a little, almost too late. 

Duncan: How did you feel about maybe underperforming in school? Was it a big emotional thing for you?

Daniella: At first it wasn't just because of the distraction of other students. But then when I woke up and I was like, wait a second. And I saw my, they had international student and I saw what, how they were performing and, we had the same dream, but the way they were going about it was a little different than I was then I was like, wait a second, I'm missing something here.

And I didn't catch it at first, and I didn't realize the difference in system and that took me by surprise because I was like, I get it. Like I'm [00:07:00] learning it in class. I get it. A lot of the learning here is about critical thinking. But for me, back home, it's not about critical thinking about like, do you do the teacher's teaching?

Do you get it? Yes. Are you able to memorize it? Yes. And then that's why they bring in exams. But here it's like, do you get a concept? Okay, now go use this concept in trying to figure out something completely different. And it took me a second, so it was very challenging and heartbreaking at the end of it because I felt like there are some skills that I missed and the school setting was the right place for me to gain those skills.

Another part that I also realized as an asylee versus international students is that there's also a big reality on our end. Like we don't come here as an international student. We don't have a home to go back to. When we come here, we come with a family. We've seen war. I have some friends from Nigeria who never, what is war?

I'm not saying that they don't have also their own issues, but some of the stuff, the struggle that we're going through, they never faced. And also their families are sending them to school.

I remember I was working [00:08:00] full time and going to school full time and I remember like at times I had to step in and help my family get paid and pay for my housing. And also sometime like, take care of, my siblings. I remember on Christmas, my parents didn't have enough to buy the gift. I didn't want them to want things and I wanted them to also have a good life.

So I remember going home with a big bag because I went shopping for them and I had to work, and so that my siblings will have a different life and a different experience, than I did. So there was also a lot of responsibility that I took and I felt like that also was destructive for me.

So the school for me was almost like a safe place for me to just be young, and stupid because at home I, you have responsibility for your family, you have. Especially for your siblings. You are the interpreter, you are the navigator you are taking parents to social services where they're receiving food stamp and learning that your father was a medical doctor is now under the poverty line.

And depending on begging and proving how poor is for him to get this, the supports, there's a lot of things that we don't talk about and we don't [00:09:00] realize that they affected our lives and our ability to learn. And some of it's like me as an older siblings, I got exposed to that. Maybe my siblings, I've never seen, like going to my parents doctor's appointment, to all the social services appointments interpreting for places where I don't need to interpret for them.

 I shouldn't be interpreting for them. One day they are telling like prove to us that you don't have money prove to us, you know, all these social services that the way people get all these food stamp and Medicaid and, you know, it's not a beautiful process.

It's a process that almost like strip away someone's dignity. And it's not a place for a child to be witnessing their parents being, you know, like de-humanized. So those are things that I don't think at the time I understood it affected me because all I wanted to do in school is to forget all that and to just be a student and just to have fun and to be a kid. Because outside of those school walls outside of the university, I was a mom and an auntie and a navigator and [00:10:00] sometime, you know, I was everything to the people that I love the most.

And that was a lot challenging to navigate.

Duncan: Wow, that's a lot.

Daniella: Yeah.

Duncan: What did you end up studying?

Daniella: I studied biology ' cause I wanted to be a medical doctor. I was so inspired by my dad and I always knew since I was a kid because my dad would take me to the hospital back home. And I was fascinated more about him being a doctor. It wasn't actually, the practice itself is the way. It is the way he used his position at a hospital to bring people together.

Like we come from a place where there was a lot of worry, especially trouble war  people being against each other. And I saw how my dad used  his knowledge, his medical degree and position society to bring people together. Like people want healthcare. And he treated people with dignity, with respect, with honor and all people the same.

And the way people just came together, because of [00:11:00] what he was giving. And what he was giving was universal and it was needed people needed that. And I think that's what fascinated me more about medicine.  It was almost like a, the healing process was physical, but also was like a heart healing, an emotional healing, spiritual healing. Now that I'm older, I get to see this. But, I always say like, I wanna be a doctor, but like, that's what I was looking for, like that platform, that space. So I wanted to become a doctor because I wanted that I saw that type of medicine, which is not an American way of medicine anyways. In the US it's says patient centered, but very disconnected and disjoined and it's not community based.

But back home that's what I fell in love with. So I wanted to study medicine. I studied biology. And then going in it, I was like, this is, biology itself is boring. and another friend who took neuroscience and thought that was fascinated. So I took a minor in neuroscience, so I studied a lot of biopsych and psychology and that was very interesting.

I wish I actually did that as a major. But I studied [00:12:00] biology and pre-med.

Duncan: So then what happened after, graduating?

Daniella: Yeah. So after all the difficulty that I went through and the heart for medicine, I graduated. But one thing that I realized, and this is very hard to share because it's not pretty, but I'm gonna share it anyways, because I found myself, I found a lot of young people go through this because of the difficulty that I, was facing.

 I wasn't so aware of them and I didn't, I didn't see how they affected me and lack of mentorship and lack of support I had, all my parents wanted me to be a doctor, and they supported that dream. Everybody in the community, well, they were like, Daniela is her dad's daughter and she's gonna be like her dad.

Everybody called me doctor when I was a student. There was a lot of pressure. But because of how I did schooling, I did not learn. I finished with a degree, but I didn't learn. I finished with a degree and I could pass exam, but I lacked the skills, the [00:13:00] skills of a scientist. And I saw it because a lot of my friends who actually end up going to medical school and did PhDs after that were spending time in the lab and they were loving labs and I wasn't doing that.

So after I graduated, I, I realized that I'm lacking knowledge. I just spent time in school. I could pass a class, but I'm lacking knowledge. And I see this a lot with a, a lot of community member where like they go to school, they study these big things and then when they graduate they have a hard time finding jobs because they lack knowledge.

Some of my friends were like, we would do a lot of church and a lot of, being like in our community, in our families that.  We didn't realize in order for us to do good in school, we had to like detach from a lot of the responsibility that we had in our community to actually focus in school.

But some of us, like especially the older siblings in our community, like we had to, the churches that our parents were part of or our parents were studying needed singers and they needed youth [00:14:00] leaders and then you find yourself doing all this at the same time, also pursuing something like science, and it's impossible.

And it's okay to put a break and learn. And that's something that I realized after I graduated. I lacked skills, so I applied to a lot of places after I graduated, I wanted to pursue medical school, but I didn't try to take the MCAT the first time and I failed miserably. Because again, it's a lot of critical thinking, Because our goal was like, I can memorize this. Go take the exam. It's completely different than what I learned. and nobody told me that. So a lot of things was self-help, self figuring out. And that was really difficult. But I went home, applied to about 40 jobs. I was like, let me maybe do research and I couldn't find a job.

And then I realized that a lot of the job, while reading the job description, I just didn't have the skills. So I was like, okay, what do I know how to do? I know how to live with people. And that's when I start exploring me as a person, as an individual. So I had a heart for people with [00:15:00] disability. I couldn't do retail jobs.

That wasn't, I could not do that. I needed to work with people. So I start tutoring I worked with this childhood disability and I was tutoring him and also just taking care of him. And I remember his mom asking me what I do, what I learned, and I was like, yeah, I have this science background, but I don't have a job yet.

I don't have a lot of experience. And she shared the story of her husband who passed away from cancer and how her husband was a patient at Duke and they had given money to Duke and there's this lab that they had open and they want to honor her husband. They wanna commemorate her husband, because I worked really well with her child, she wanted to share my CV and introduce me to one of the PI at Duke, so they can see if they can take me to do research.

And I was like, yeah, that would be great. But I was, I was like, if I can't even get a job at some research place and UNC can take me at Duke won't definitely take me. but I had, I was good at interpersonal skills. I was good at talking caring for people, passionate about [00:16:00] things.

And I use that. And when I do something, I make sure that I do it all my heart and I put all my hard work into it. and there's nothing that I took as too small of a job. Even taking care of my son with cerebral palsy was very important to me and I made sure that I do it right.

And through that network I networked with her and she took that further to introduce me to these researchers. And I remember them giving me an interview and they had this position to do half clinical research and half wet lab research for cancer research. and I went there and I was authentic and true.

And I told him, I don't have the skills, probably don't, don't have the skills, but I have a willing heart to learn. And I remember they were like, yeah, we have this position, but we are having a hard time to find the right fit. This is at Duke University. They have among the best students who are graduating, and they had interviewed I think five other students who graduated from Duke, and they felt like it wasn't a good fit.

 And they were like, yeah, you might not have [00:17:00] the skill, but you have the attitude that we need, you are a good fit for our team. We can teach you these skills. And that was my first, break for work. So I went and I was doing research at Duke and I learned the skills and it was clinical work and wet lab work.

And that got published into a lot of research that I did. I think you Google my name and I'm getting a couple of those published, and that's how I got the chance I used what I had. And what I had was the hearts the passion, non neglecting any relationship. There's nothing small.

You'd never know who you meet and what the relationship will get you. And that's what I use and that's what got me my first profession.

Duncan: Wow, that's an inspiring lesson. And then you spent how many years there?

I 

Daniella: spent two years at Duke and then I got married, to my best friend. His name is Daniel. And in 2019 we got married and I was still working at Duke, but at the time he was finishing up, he was a trained civil engineer and worked for an [00:18:00] engineer back home and in Namibia. But when he came to the US at the time, they told him that petroleum engineering was the, the it, so he did petroleum engineer , and after he graduated, we got married, but his work sent him to Oklahoma.

So I left my job to go to Oklahoma. By the time I was thinking of like, now is the perfect time to start restudying again for the MCAT and applying for school again. Went there and, I got pregnant and then COVID hit. And then his job moved him to Texas from Oklahoma.

So I was like, you know, this whole moving, I'm about to give birth. Lemme just go home in North Carolina and give birth and then we'll figure out after. Went to North Carolina, I went to give birth to my son Zion, who's now five years old. And I navigated the healthcare system there.

And everything I learned about black people navigating maternity systems, especially around maternal health. Everything that I learned became a [00:19:00] reality to me. I was discriminated against. I cried for pain and I was ignored. I had preeclampsia and I told them that I'm not feeling good.

They were like, you are just exaggerating. You're good. And I almost died. I was hospitalized twice after I gave birth, because they left piece of the placenta in me and I had preeclampsia that they almost ignored, but I survived. And also my son, when I was pregnant with him and the monitor was showing that he wasn't doing good. I've advocated to do a c-section and they were like, no, we've seen this. We've seen, we have so many experience, you don't have to. And I was like, no, the monitor is telling me that something is wrong. You and what ended up happening is like they now saw that there was an issue and the doctor was like, let me go prep the operation room and we're gonna take care of you left for an hour.

And my son was in so much distress that it was almost too late to do it, a c-section. So they did a vacuum and when I had him, they had to resuscitate him. So he had [00:20:00] some lack of oxygen in his brain when he was born and yeah. And they had to put him in a cold covers they had to get his body temperature so low to stop the brain damage that was happening.

And yeah, and I had to pray to see if he's gonna survive. and after that, he was in the hospital for 40 days. I got discharged, but it was during the pandemic, so I wasn't allowed to have a visitor. My husband wasn't allowed to stay with me. I went back to the hospital to tell them that I wasn't feeling good.

They were like, you're fine. One of the doctor was like, can I check your blood pressure? Can you believe that they almost sent me home without checking my blood pressure? Checked my blood pressure, find out that my pressure was around 200. So they had to put me back in and then they found out I was preeclampsia.

So they had to treat me, send me back home, but I was bleeding too much. And I told them, they were like, you fine. And I, told my husband the middle of the night, I was like, take me there and leave me at the doorstep of the hospital. ' Cause they had to take me and if they don't, at [00:21:00] least, you know what kills me?

Ended up taking me. And they went and then came to find out that they left pieces of the placenta in me. So all this were happening and what they end up telling me was that this never happened to anyone. And I was that the 1%. Then I was like, no, it happens all the time. And that's when my career path changed.

Because I, saw how hard it was for me. I went to school here, I speak English, I can navigate healthcare system. I'm very familiar with hospitals. But had a hard time and I was like, what about all the other women who don't speak the language? The refugee immigrants. So I decided to choose a different career path.

Actually the career path found me but my experience was kind of an eye opener because I come from a country where system were non-existent, we long for system. We are looking for system in Congo that serve the population. So when I came to the US there was a system already established, but navigating that system [00:22:00] was very difficult and I didn't see it.

'cause the narrative is. The system is there and you as a, as refugee, like it's there for you. You can, you can do it and you can learn the English and you can do that. So I was like, yeah, maybe we need just work hard to navigate the system. 

But it wasn't until I gave birth that I realized how difficult and things that were reading a statistic for Black American it wasn't just for the African American in this country, but it was all people of color. And that's when it became so true to me that I was black. ' cause I knew I was black, but I didn't know that I was black. Until I went through that experience. And, yeah. And, so that changed how I view things and made me want to do more in something different.

And I didn't know what it was that I wanted to do because the organization that I work with now, I knew of it before because when I worked at Duke, I used to volunteer doing interpretation. My best friend at the time worked for the organization was, had this [00:23:00] initiative, to accompany mothers who were giving birth.

And she was providing some doulaship for the mothers. And I was providing interpretation. And so I knew these things, but it didn't mean so much to me until it affected me personally, that woke me up from whatever sleep I was in. So from there I knew that I needed to do something and something now, because my story was not uncommon and my story was not unique.

So I was like, what can I do now to support all the other ladies who are navigating systems? So my friend talked to me about this grant that their nonprofits received helping people navigating healthcare systems. And they wanted me to run it and to start a program. And so I went in because they wanted community voice and community experience.

So a lot of my work at the time started, I used my personal experience and experience of other women and other people in the community that I knew of, that I was finding, to build what we call a language [00:24:00] navigator program, which is the work that actually is the now the focus of the organization.

Duncan: Wow. That's incredible. Thank you for sharing that. How is Zion doing now?

Daniella: Zion is doing amazing. Zion is doing great. Zion, yes, had, some difficulties. but he also happened to be blind, had a lot of, he chronic illnesses, but he's doing great. He's one of the happiest little kid I know, very bright. He's very much into music. He loves music. He loves singing.

He loves drumming. He thrive when there's like some music around him. And he has taught me so much. We are learning together. He's a great learner and a great teacher. we are learning, how to navigate his world as a blind person and we are figuring out together.

He's a great teacher because, as a child he's just full of hope and joy and, disability is also an, it's a [00:25:00] stigma, you know, the community that we are from. So that's a different topic and a different conversation but we are trying to navigate that stigma, but also navigate the difficulties as a person of disability to navigate anything right now, healthcare systems, but also just school in general.

You know, he just graduated pre-K and he is going to kindergarten. And just to show you how difficult this can be I received a scholarship from North Carolina of $17,000 to get him to a private school. And I wanted private school because it's a smaller classroom and a smaller setting, and he does really good when it's like it's a smaller classroom.

And, and I thought private school had a lot of resources and they can support him, but because they're not federally mandated to teach him braille and to to teach him all the necessary skills that he needs to thrive in school, they all didn't take him. So now I have to give back the $17,000 scholarship that I had for him because none of the private school want to have him as a child who's blind, not because academically he can't do it.

He's one of the brightest kid I know. He has some [00:26:00] skills that no one he's, he would memorize a book and will recite it for you. He speaks three languages at five years old. He is a musical genius. but none of them would take him. Well I say none of them, but a lot of, all the school I applied to because he happens to be blind and they just, they don't have the resources, but they have the money.

They just are not willing to put in the effort. So we know that that's the reality that we have to navigate. And because of his attitude and who he is, he's a good one to navigate this with. 

Duncan: well, he's lucky to have you. 'cause I think you have so much perspective from everything that you went through as well, that I think you have such a unique perspective and can imagine and put yourself in his position probably unlike and almost anyone else.

Daniella: Oh yeah, that's something that my husband had to understand quickly so that in order for us to help him, ' cause with the stigma that comes with pursuing people with disability, and I don't know any other blind person in my community, like in the Banyamulenge community that [00:27:00] I, I've never met any other black person and forget about the Bunyamulenge community.

I don't just know any other black person. So for me it was just really, really hard and being blind isn't even the issue that scares me more about his health issues. Being blind is just a small one compared to the other health issues that we need to deal with him. But one thing that my husband and I, we had to mourn first our loss because there's this hope that we had for this first child. We knew that it was gonna come this way and we're gonna do all this stuff, but that wasn't the reality. So we had to go through that loss first and that's something that we did together.

But also the other thing that we had to ask ourself was, why not us? Why, what other family that Zion should belong to? If not, it's not us. We are the ones who are equipped to support him through this time, and we are just supporting him because he's gonna be doing it and we don't know what he's going through and what he's gonna go through.

And it was the question of like, why not us? Why not us? If this child [00:28:00] was gonna be born, why not us? And, we realized that yeah, we are equipped and it's us who's supposed to help him. That, that perspective helped us a lot.

Duncan: So I think in a way you've come full circle. your father. First in his community medical doctor, you are seeing the relationship that he had with his patients and now you're contrasting it with your own personal experience with the medical system. So you're seeing this cultural difference between medicine back there and medicine here and this rude awakening of racial difference of identity. That's just a lot.

Daniella: Yeah.

Duncan: But it sounds like your whole voyage took you to this place where now you're leading a group whose mission is for language access is a big part of their

Daniella: Hmm

Duncan: what other thoughts do you have for a younger version of yourself? That kid that was juggling everything that had to be grown up to take care of your family? ' cause there's some other undergraduate right now that's balancing the same [00:29:00] things and trying their best and maybe their only outlet is in college.

Daniella: Yeah. Uh oh. That teenager. I would tell her to take it easy. First of all, it's okay to take it easy to pause and reflect. ' cause there's so much thrown at us that we don't take time to pause and reflect. A lot of us do reflection while reacting to things, and we get to miss a lot. I don't regret my journey.

I think you're right, like the perspective that I have now, the reason why I'm able to even to lead my organization, support my son is because of the perspective and the background and everything that I went through. but also that's not a very story. And, and if I just put some checkpoint in everything and yet to just pause and reflect, I could see that being very beneficial.

To seek help. I know a lot of us, think that we can do [00:30:00] everything, which we can do a lot of things, but we also need support. We need to be able to regulate everything that we are feeling. Like I shared earlier, a lot of the reason why, like in college, I was just like going and going and going and enjoying is because there's a, my teenager that I did not live fully and I was compensating for it at the wrong time.

So that's stopping and reflect and figuring us out to like appreciate each journey and each path and each step of life, would've been helpful. I wish I knew what was going on before taking on that voice. I wish I did two years of community college because the, what my parents needed me at the time was to support them and support my, siblings and I wanted that for them too. And I wanted that too.

So maybe going to university wasn't what I needed. The first two years, maybe doing that two years of community college just to be closer and to earn some, the first like biology physically in all the first [00:31:00] classes. Maybe I needed just to do it at a community college where maybe like the juggling of the schedule and being closer would've been easier and different because my sister did that. She just finished her public policy degree as a master's degree at UNC. She took a pause after high school, and then when she came back and she went to like, find her identity, she went to learn about who she is. And she went through a journey of finding her identity.

And after she was done, she went to a community college and did really good because she didn't have the money to start going to college. And then she did so good that they gave a full scholarship to UNC Chapel Hill to do her undergrad. And she did it in two years. And when she was done, they gave an admission to do her masters and she had enough identity.

Like she knew who she was, and she had done what she needed to do. When she was in school, she did it fully. I wish I did what I, what she did, because she took time for her to care for her. And, and and what that took, and what that looked like was to stop school [00:32:00] for a couple of years.

Not everybody have that capacity or want that. It might be pausing for a year. It might be starting with a community college. But taking that and knowing and, that is a different reality for my younger sister. The youngest in our family also just graduated from UNC Chapel Hill.

 But for her and her experience is different than my other sister and it's different from me. So you might be from the same family, but have different, completely different experiences. My middle sister was in between my younger sister and myself, and the way she did it is like she took a break to take care of herself, then did her schooling, and that showed up in the grades.

 That showed up in the skills and the knowledge. What she study, she actually know what she study. She actually good at what she does. She actually have like an identity and she owns the work and she chose what she really knew that she needed. but because she took a break, so if I was to tell my younger self, I would tell her to do that, to take a break, to pause and reflect.

And to [00:33:00] actually like, and it's okay. take a break from school, if that's what it is needed, because what is it to finish the degree that you can't use because you are not ready to go there. it's okay to question what you, what you want before investing your time and your energy to something that you're not sure about.

That's something that I would tell my younger self, but also for those who kind of went and winged it like me. This resiliency in our experience. What do you have? Like what is it that you have maybe that knowledge in college you actually don't have it because you don't maybe pay too much attention or for whatever reason you're not, can use your degree.

But what do you have beyond? You have your lived experience and what else? What are you good at? What do you love the most? Do that. And there's no such, thing as a small, experience. And there's no such thing as a job that is too small. If you are working to, like myself, I was working, take care of [00:34:00] kids with people with disability.

and that job include giving meds, passing meds, but also doing like some house cleaning, also washing people, cleaning everything. But I made sure that I did it with all my heart and with excellency and what that taught me there's a, skill that I learned from that because, it doesn't matter what you what you give me.

Like, I know that I have to do things good and I bring passion into it. And so this, everything that you do, you can learn from it. So what is it that you're doing right now and what are you learning from it? And what are those natural gift that you have and how can you explore them and then network and respect everyone and anyone because you never know who's gonna take you to the next step.

Uh, networking is something that we don't do often, and a lot of us as refugee kids, we don't use our story to advance ourselves. Our stories, our weapon, our stories, our pride, our stories. And I know some of them can be very painful, but so those who have been able to talk about them, use them for your [00:35:00] advantage.

I always tell people, like, I remember in college people would pay thousands of dollars to go do a service work outside of the country. And most of the time what they want is experience and perspective so that when they're writing college essay so they can say that they've seen this and they've experienced this.

We don't need those mission work. We don't need those. Like we, our lives itself has a lot of mission work in it, but we don't know how to tell story. So we need to become storytellers and use our lives for advantage and to give us those opportunities that are out there for us.

And that's what I like about the US is like, there are opportunities that, there are some scholarships that are about like people who have gone through hardship, look at your life. A lot of us have those life but a lot of the time we don't reflect to learn enough from our experience.

Sometime we just go experience to experience, to experience, to experience. But sometimes just taking a break and look back, what did I learn from this? Okay, something tragic happened to me, but like, what can I get from [00:36:00] it? That's something that I wish I did better at the beginning. I wouldn't have wasted a lot of time.

But I do now, and that's why I'm in the positions that I'm in today. Because I'm a co-executive director and the way I started my organization, I was a volunteer then I was doing some interpretation gig work, then I start part-time coordinating a program, and then I went to full-time coordinating that program.

But because of the way I was doing my job. I wasn't like, oh, I coordinator part-time. No. I was like, this is what I'm doing and I can use my interpersonal skill to do my job right. I use my passion and someone was able to see leadership in me leadership that I did not see in myself.

I never thought I could be a co-executive director and make decisions that then lead organizations. But it took someone else to observe me and to observe the way I was doing things. To point these things at me. Madison Hayes is my, co-ED and, and the person who brought me into this [00:37:00] position, when she brought it up to me at first, I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no.

That's not me. That's not what I want to do. I wanna do, I tell my myself I wanna do medicine. This is not my thing. I don't even know what, what do leaders do? What is there? You know, what is that? and she was like, that's okay. That's okay. Uh, forget about it. Uh, how can we help you to, to go back to school then to do, I don't know, medicine or nursing?

And, and I remember she start thinking about the mode of co-leadership. And she asked me, Daniella, would you be willing to be part of this cohort with me and learn and brainstorm with me on how to start this mode of co-leadership. It was an invitation to just thinking about how that can be done within our organization.

But I didn't know at the time that it was her way to actually introduce me to the work. And I was like, sure. That, that I love, actually love brainstorming and I love, I had have a couple of ideas and I was just like listening and giving my feedback here, but mostly listening and, and I start [00:38:00] sharing and my other Co-ED, like she just took us on this journey and we're just imagining.

And she knew that we had those skills, but we didn't know that we had those skills. Also, I didn't know that I had those skills myself, and once she had pointed out to me, I was like, no, this is not for me, but working with me through it and working together. Then I came to realize, wait a second, I am, I'm doing it.

I'm leading the organization. Then I went back to her. I was like, so when am I gonna start getting paid for this leadership role that I'm playing? but at the time it was her strategy to just like, you move me and having me appreciate and see this leadership potential. And I come to find out that I love it.

That's a skill that I never knew I had by being a leader in my family, in my community, in my church. I didn't know that those were leadership skills that I was building. I just knew that I had to like do all these things that I'm so passionate about. But those were skill that were building me to be a leader.

 and I really, I think I'm good at it and I love it. Uh, and I'm not good at it because I have all these skills. No I'm still learning and every [00:39:00] day I'm learning, but I'm good at it because. I love it and I see myself doing it. I'm naturally a visionary and I, I know how to utilize my resources and recognize potential in others to do the things that they can do best.

And I was like that, that's what leadership is, that, that's all. So, but it took someone else to observe me, but they had to observe something that is true and authentic and that I had to build. I knew that everything that I'm gonna do it, there's nothing too small for me to do. If I'm gonna tutor, I'm gonna tutor passionately.

I'm gonna be on time, I'm gonna be kind, and I'm gonna do it good. If I'm gonna be taking care of people with disability, I'm gonna do it well, even when people are not seeing me, I'm working at night and I'm alone in the, in the house taking care of these people, these six residents, I am gonna mop the bath and I'm gonna clean them and I'm gonna do the right thing.

And those small things build skills in me that are now visible to other people, that they're like, wait a second, you. [00:40:00] You have a work ethic that is a leadership one. yeah. So that's kind of how I ended up in the job that I'm in right now. And, and now I can't imagine myself doing some other interesting thing 'cause life, it's all about what you learn and what you bring.

But yeah. Like, this is what I'm supposed to be doing and, and from here on, like I know what I'm good at and what I can continue to work on and Yeah.

Duncan: I would say there's a direct line from the story that you led off with, with your dad, the dignity that he brought to work, the leadership that he showed in his community that you admired so much and that you emulated. So I think there's a direct connection there that I see,

even though it's a, maybe a slightly different field, but it's the field of people

Daniella: it's the field of people. 

That's 

Duncan: I think Right.

you're your father's daughter.

Daniella: Yeah. Yes. Everybody will say that.

Duncan: And then those, the same awe that you had for your father. I think all of these people see the the leadership [00:41:00] skills that you have, it's the same thing.

Daniella: yeah, that's true. And by the way, we have community navigators working with members and supportive navigating healthcare system. The best navigator we have out there is my father. I recruited him to help navigate and he doesn't speak a lot of English, but he, he understands systems and he knows people and he bring the comfort around people.

So he is among our best navigator out there, he loves it and he loves what he get to do and to support people navigating systems. And sometime you get to talk to them and make them comfortable about the medicine that they give and ask them the right question because as a physician, he has a lot of the nuance has a lot of the background knowledge a lot of our members go through and he's one among the best navigator that we have in our program and he loves it and we love him.

Duncan: well thank you so much for sharing you're so generous with your time.

Daniella: Thank 

you. 

Duncan: think you told us a story that I think is unforgettable that ties together so many things. I think of so many different [00:42:00] immigrant experiences, but I think so many experiences of just young people in 

Daniella: Yeah. 

Duncan: And yeah, I can't thank you enough.

Daniella: No, thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. I don't think we get a chance to share our stories more often, and I've never, nobody has asked me this question before. So I'm glad that I get to share it because I wish I had heard someone speaking and sharing their story with me when I was younger.

So I hope that this helps someone. Something that I didn't mention, find mentorship if you can and value those. And mentorship can look different depending on like, different things that you are doing. It can be mentorship for life, in general.

Mentorship, if you have someone in your community that you admire and you admire her, I'm a mom and there are people that I love how they do motherhood in this country. All our experience in this country is a learning experience. there's an opportunity to learn. And, a lot of us first generation uh, refugee and immigrants, it's just we are learning things all the time.

So if you see someone who is doing it better, be b old enough to go and ask [00:43:00] them how they're doing it, tailor it to you. and that applies to every part of your life, your physical life, your emotional life, your spiritual life, your, education, every part of your life. We are not meant to do this life alone, and this country a lot of the time they tell us, okay, you're gonna be independent. Nobody's independent. We were not made to be independent. We are interdependent. We depend on each other for survival. So. it is just innate. in us to, to depend on one another. and that's when we thrive, so find people and go after it.

Duncan: And, and that again, emphasize on the point of like pause and reflect. 'cause there's already so much that is really happening, but we don't take enough time to pause and reflect and see the impact of everybody around us, whether positive or negative.

Daniella: Because by pausing and reflecting, dictate the next steps we take. But if we don't pause and reflect, we just gonna do whatever we think is right. And it might, if you're lucky enough, it might be good if you're not, might be bad. But pausing and reflect give you that time to [00:44:00] strategically thinking about how you move.

Duncan: And maybe with a mentor or someone that you can talk freely with, then you can see your own story from the 

outside. Because when you're on the inside of your story, it's hard to see the beginning or the end or the middle.

Daniella: Yes,

yes. thank you so 

much.

Thank you for the

opportunity

 Thank you for listening to this two-part conversation with Daniella Runyambo. Her story is one of resilience. From war and displacement to the challenges of American schools to transforming her personal struggles into advocacy for others. As co-executive Director of Programs and Community Impact at Refugee Community Partnership, Daniella continues to ensure that refugee and immigrant families have the support they need to navigate healthcare systems with dignity. 

Here is a preview of our next episode with Dr. Ethan Hua, interventional Radiology faculty at the University of Washington Medical Center.

Ethan: I think the reason why folks have this sanitized narrativeis that to get through the gauntlet of undergrad and medical [00:45:00] school and residency, you have to come up with that story yourself and tell it to yourself, to succeed, 

Because. everyone needs the 30 second elevator pitch when you're doing med school interviews, residency interviews, job interviews. No one wants to hear this huge, tumultuous story that you have. You need to streamline and sanitize it, and make it palatable to someone who's gonna accept you into medical school or accept you in a residency.

And like for me, I just wasn't interviewing properly and I didn't tie my story into a cohesive story. Like it was a stereotypical, like messy life.

Duncan: Thank you for listening to the EthnoMed Podcast, a community voice in the clinic. If you enjoyed today's episode, please share it with a colleague or a student who might be inspired by Daniella's journey. You can also find more episodes on Spotify, apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.

Be sure to visit our website at ethnomed.org for additional resources. Also follow us on YouTube and Instagram at [00:46:00] EthnoMedUW and on LinkedIn. Do you have comments or suggestions? We would love to hear from you at EthnoMedUW@uw.edu. Thank you and see you at our next episode.