St. Thomas seniors Mohamed Malim and Tarik Kidane launched the company Epimonia, a fashion apparel company that aims to spread love and hope to refugees, in January of 2018.

Malim, a former refugee and Somali American, decided that he wanted to find a way to give money to help other refugees. After starting his own nonprofit, Dream Refugee, he learned that starting a for-profit would allow him to make money that he could then give to other nonprofits.

Malim recently won the 2018 President’s Student Leadership Award for his work with Dream Refugee.

Looking for a business partner that would share in his passion for helping refugees, he turned to Kidane. Kidane is Eritrean American, and while not a refugee, he has family that were refugees.

“As a refugee from Kenya, there’s so much heat, there’s so much going on in the world politically, and I just want to give back something,” Malim said.

They are currently selling the Epibrace, a bracelet made out of recycled life jackets that have been worn by refugees on their journey to safety. The life jackets are collected from Lesbos Island in Greece by a nonprofit called Movement on the Ground, then sent to the manufacturing company Dream Factory, where they are handmade almost entirely by refugees.

Dream Factory is based out of Den Haaq, Netherlands, and is run by Malim’s uncle, Omar Munie. Munie is a former refugee from Somalia.

Ten percent of the proceeds go to their numerous nonprofit partners. Their hope is for this number to increase as they sell more products.

Another goal for Malim and Kidane is to educate people on what the word ‘refugee’ means.

“The recent hurricanes down south, the people affected by those are refugees. It’s not just Africans. It’s not just southeast Asians. It’s Americans too,” Kidane said.

The name Epimonia comes from the Greek word for persistence, epimoní, something that Malim knows first hand from his experience as a refugee.

“From my experience growing up in America, there’s a lot of obstacles, a lot of challenges like learning the new language, reintegrating into society,” said Malim, “You have to relearn all of that.”

Kidane said that they hope to expand to bigger markets, but for now they are focused on staying close to home.

“Let’s start here in the cities, hopefully get a little bigger and go to the region or even the nation,” Kidane said. “Then of course if we go to the international stage, that would be great.”

Kat Barrett can be reached at barr1289@stthomas.edu.