Amna Gayelli & Mohammed Elgaali family

Amna Gayelli and Mohammed Elgaali and their family won the lottery in 2000, the Green Card Lottery. They were one of the lucky families chosen to receive US Permanent Resident Cards through the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program.

Under the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program, the chosen families would not receive assistance from the US government for the first 5 years while in America. Because of this, the Gayelli-Elgaali family waited a few years to save up money before moving from Sudan to the United States. In 2003, Amna and the family’s 5 kids moved to Iowa to get settled while Mohammed, a dentist, stayed in Sudan to continue earning money for the family. He moved to Iowa City and reunited with his family in 2004.

Mohammed currently works as an interpreter at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, while Amna is a food service worker at UIHC. Mohammed and Amna’s 5 kids – sons, 12, 18, 21 and 23, and their 15-year-old daughter – all attend school. The eldest three are receiving college educations at Kirkwood Community College, the University of Iowa for engineering, and Iowa State for engineering.

Before moving into their Iowa Valley Habitat for Humanity home, the family of seven lived in a three-bedroom home, leaving Mohammed and Amna’s five kids to share two bedrooms. With their new home five-bedroom, two-story home built by Iowa Valley Habitat for Humanity, the family finally has enough space to congregate and live happily.

Before building the home, Mohammed said they were looking forward to more rooms and having their own house. This family, like all Habitat partner families, will not owe any interest on the mortgage, making this the only viable opportunity for them to own their own home.

The Diversity Immigrant Visa Program is a congressionally-mandated lottery program occurring each year. The program provides 50,000 Diversity Immigrants (DV Immigrants) the opportunity to receive visas and works to bring people from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States.