Brolin Mawejje

Brolin Mawejje is not your average snowboarder. He was born on the outskirts of Kampala, Uganda, and emigrated to a sleepy suburb outside Boston, Mass., as a 12 year old. Barely able to speak the language and living with a mother whom he barely knew, Mawejje felt like a cat tossed into water and had to figure out how to swim quickly. His sanctuary came through the unlikely sport of snowboarding. In seventh grade, Mawejje joined a program that would take kids to a local ski hill after school. On the slopes, he discovered a place where his background and past ceased to exist, and all that mattered was the present moment. For the first time in his life, he felt like he discovered the sense of belonging and community he had been searching for his whole life.

Mawejje found a group of friends through snowboarding who accepted him as a brother. At 17 years old, he was given the opportunity to move out to Jackson Hole with the Hessler family and join the Jackson Hole Snowboard Team under the coaching of Jeff Moran. Riding in Jackson gave Mawejje the opportunity to take his snowboarding to the next level as he started competing all over the northwest. As his skills improved, a dream materialized to pursue snowboarding in the Olympics for his home country of Uganda. Now 23 years old, Mawejje is in his final semester of a pre-med degree at Westminster College and well on his way to become the first African to ever snowboard in the Winter Olympics in the coming 2018 Games.

Check out the award-winning documentary "Far From Home" to learn more about Mawejje's journey.

Far From Home from Galen Knowles on Vimeo.