FUGEES
FAMILY
It all started with a wrong turn. In 2004, Luma got lost one day in her car in the town of Clarkston, Georgia. In the middle of trying to execute a three-point turn, she happened to glance at a nearby vacant lot where a group of kids were playing soccer with a deflated ball, using rocks for goals. Luma soon learned that the kids were refugees from countries like Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and Sudan, whose families were starting new lives in the community. As a refugee and as long-time soccer coach, who’d played since childhood herself, Luma was inspired to start a soccer team, called The Fugees, which grew into a national movement to transform education for refugee kids – creating a unique instructional model that uses sports, art, music, and language immersion to help kids reach their full academic potential and thrive in the United States.
