In 2019, Bushiri Salamu’s accomplishments despite his unimaginable circumstances caught our attention. We honored him that year in partnership with the Dollar General Literacy Foundation as the Dollar General Student of the Year at our conference held in San Diego.
2019 Dollar General Student of the Year award.
As a teen, Bushiri lived through civil war in his home country of Democratic Republic of Congo. Both of his parents were murdered on the same day.
For almost five years he did not speak.
He escaped his home country and waited with his younger brother and sister in a refugee camp in Zambia to be accepted for resettlement in the United States. When they arrived in 2012, Bushiri enrolled in English as a Second Language classes with the International Rescue Committee.
Bushiri began to once again find his voice.
Over five years, he advanced through ESL classes and in December of 2018—with the help of ProLiteracy member program Literacy Volunteers of Charlottesville/Albemarle (LVCA)—Bushiri passed the GED® test and earned his high school credential. That same month, he also became a US citizen.
Since being honored for those achievements in 2019, Bushiri hasn’t slowed down.
In 2019, he applied to community college with a plan to continue on to medical school.
“That was my dream, because my father, he was a doctor in Congo,” he said. “When I came here, I still had a dream to go to medical school.”
Bushiri with his associate’s degree in August 2025.
However, Bushiri was nearly 30 and decided, with the help of a friend’s advice, that maybe years of medical school might not be the best path. He decided instead to enroll in classes to become a certified nursing assistant (CNA) and, again with the help of LCVA, got a job working in neonatal intensive care.
He worked as a CNA for two years before deciding nursing was not for him. After his years of silence, he now speaks with a stutter, which made it difficult when he would communicate with patients and their families.
“When people are sick,” he said, “it is hard for them to be patient.”
Undeterred, he went back to LCVA and, with the help of his tutor, earned his phlebotomy certification. For three years and seven months, Bushiri found his spot and worked in a blood bank and labs. But then he began thinking again about what else was out there for him to learn.
“I thought studying medical laboratory science would be a good option for me,” he said.
He once again enrolled in classes. When he told LCVA about his next steps, their response: We’re here to help if you need help.
Bushiri at his new job in medical laboratory sciences.
Last month, Bushiri graduated with his associate’s degree in medical laboratory science. He invited friends from LCVA to the ceremony and visited the office to show them his diploma.
“Without them, maybe I would still be doing my housekeeping jobs. I was doing three housekeeping jobs,” he said. “With [LCVA], I changed my job from housekeeping to CNA to phlebotomy. Today, I’m in medical laboratory sciences.”
Bushiri is proof that adult education programming works.
“I would tell other people to just ask for help, because it’s hard for people to know you need help unless you ask for it,” he said. “There are many people who are there to help us.”
The same week Bushiri earned his associate’s degree he also started a new job at the hospital. Now, he has set his sights on a bachelor’s degree.
ProLiteracy works to provide programs like LCVA with resources, professional development, and support so they can best serve students like Bushiri. Support our work this AEFL Week so we can continue building brighter futures.