Chernet Sisay, orphaned at age 9 in AIDS-ravaged Ethiopia, was overwhelmed by neither emotion nor the magnitude of his accomplishment when he received a diploma in the spring of 2017 at High Point. The milestone, seemingly impossible when he had been scrounging for food more than a decade before on the streets of Addis Ababa after losing his biological parents, was merely one more step on the former cross country runner’s long road. “I came here and did what I needed to do,” he says of earning his bachelor’s degree in human relations.

The subject of the fall 2015 Champion cover story was unmoved that day because he can so clearly see his larger purpose, shaped by the traumas of his youth. A year after graduating, Sisay is already well on his way to undertaking his life’s goal — providing opportunities to those who need them most.

As he articulated then, Sisay hopes to use his remarkable stroke of luck — being adopted from an Ethiopian orphanage into a loving home in the U.S. — to help others whose youths have been marred by the type of suffering he knows well. That dream hasn’t changed: Via an AmeriCorps fellowship, he now tutors underprivileged middle schoolers at South Boston’s Tierney Learning Center and is in the midst of pursuing a master’s degree in nonprofit management at Northeastern.

That blend of practical experience and his ongoing education on the nuances of overseeing a nonprofit is preparing him to launch one of his own after he completes his master’s degree. His daily work at Tierney has demanded patience, but he remains undeterred. He tries to relate to the children, many of whom live in the surrounding projects and have little interaction with their parents, by articulating his own experiences. He hopes his example proves to them that, with the right blend of effort and help, they can cultivate ambitions beyond mere survival.

On the day his life story was published, friends and teammates learned about the experiences his smile had long hidden. He received text messages from more than 100 people, eventually putting his phone in airplane mode to escape the deluge. “It was a good moment,” he says. “But at the same time, I was embarrassed. I don’t think I’m a person who wants the spotlight.”

So Sisay will continue to do vital work in relative obscurity. It took him months to realize that he can’t connect with every child, so he has learned to relish each day’s small victories: “You can’t change everyone,” he says, “but if you can make a difference in one kid, that’s a win.” — Brian Burnsed

October 20, 2015

Approach a pair of automatic sliding glass doors, and an infrared sensor will take note. The sensor sends an electrical signal to a drivetrain, which tugs on a system of cables that pull the doors open. Since 1960, billions of people have triggered that reaction without breaking stride, passing through doors like those without wonder.

Not Chernet Sisay. They astonished him.

The boy encountered his first set of sliding doors at a grocery store in Boston. Sisay had spent the first 11 years of his life in Ethiopia, so when he tripped the sensor and the doors glided open, he marveled. Intricacies like infrared lights and drivetrains and cables eluded him. Someone must be watching, he thought. Someone must have opened those doors for me.

A decade later, Sisay still chuckles to himself when he walks through automatic doors in his adopted hometown of Boston or at High Point University in North Carolina, where he is a distance runner. His new life is filled with technological wonders, ornate fountains and girls who shout his name when they spot him on campus. He carries the happiness he has found in America like an egg, protecting it with gregariousness and an unrelenting smile that ensure he doesn’t fumble his most delicate possession. If he allows his thoughts to linger in Ethiopia, he worries, the egg might shatter.

He chooses to forget because even the brightest moments of his old life are tarnished. Sisay remembers sitting atop his father’s shoulders to watch a parade for Haile Gebrselassie, who returned to Ethiopia a national hero after capturing gold in the 10,000 meters at the 2000 Olympic Games. But that father drank and abused his family. And the mother who protected that family from the violence was claimed by AIDS when Sisay was 9 – his father followed her to the grave only a month later. Sisay spent the ensuing year in the streets stealing and fighting to keep himself alive through sweltering days, and grappling with the memories of his mother that inevitably arrived with moonlight and the evening chill. So when friends or loved ones ask him to sift through the muck of his past, he politely declines. He keeps the egg safe.

Sisay insists his story isn’t about a boy from Ethiopia. It’s about the adoptive family, the teachers, the tutors, the coaches and the friends who taught him that his ambitions could extend beyond mere survival. To pay them back, he wants to help others like they helped him. But he doesn’t yearn to return to Ethiopia like Gebrselassie, a benevolent hero who escaped poverty with his feet. Sisay loves running, but it didn’t save him – Boston did. So he wants to give the city’s forgotten children the same opportunities once afforded to a boy from Ethiopia.

He is certain that, like him, anyone can escape if the right doors slide open.