20 Afghans who fled war-torn country hired at Atlanta hotel

Atlanta — The Hyatt Regency hotel in downtown Atlanta recently added 20 new employees to its workforce, all of whom are refugees from Afghanistan, who, in some cases, left everything behind.

The hotel hosted a job fair last week exclusively for those fleeing the Taliban, with more than 100 Afghans attending.

Channel 2′s Berndt Petersen spoke to some of the newly hired workers on their first day of work on Monday, including Safiollah Mahbubi, who is the hotel’s newest greeter.

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“I am very excited,” Mahbubi said. “I have had a very good experience with the people here.”

Martin Luther King once called the Hyatt the “hotel of hope,” Hotel General Manager Derrick Morrow making it a sense of pride for the business.

“Part of the key components of our hotel here is our civil rights history,” Morrow said.

According to Morrow, the hotel’s ownership company, BRE/Blackstone is hiring more than 200 Afghan refugees nationwide.

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