Refugee Week

Category - Ambassadors

Deena

The Journey I was born in the city of Kirkuk, in the north of Iraq. My family and I escaped Iraq in 1986, a month before my tenth birthday. It took us fifteen days to travel by foot to reach the border with Iran in the...

Rnita

The Journey My family and I were part of the revolution against the Bashar Assad regime in Syria, which meant we lived in constant fear. It was commonplace for people like us to be harassed, arrested or simply disappear...

Tariq

The Journey I have lived in Afghanistan, Iran and Australia. I was born when we were about to leave Afghanistan due to Soviet Union invasion back in late 1980s. We came back to Afghanistan in July 2001, a few months...

Shankar

The Journey My father used to be a teacher. He taught philosophy at a university in Sri Lanka. It was his dream job. He made friend with activists and students and loved being able to share his knowledge with them...

Rita

The Journey I came to Australia in 1993 as a refugee, when the Mujahideen took over Afghanistan. I experienced the war firsthand and understand the need for voices to represent innocent people who have faced — and are...

Yaser

The Journey I escaped Iran after the Iranian Government brutally suppressed its people in the Green Revolution in 2011. I fled my homeland on an unknown journey halfway around the world to Indonesia, where I took a boat...

Tahera

The journey I was working with MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières) in the northern part of Afghanistan when the Taliban attacked the city in 1998. That same day, I was forced to leave the country or face execution. I started...

Sophie

The journey Syria used to be a very safe place. I spent 25 years there, going to university, hanging out with friends and travelling. In 2011, when the war broke out, we started to feel threatened. We then became used...

Sidiqa

The journey Systematic discrimination, persecution, war and ongoing genocide forced me, my family and thousands of others from the Hazara ethnic minority group to leave our motherland of Afghanistan in search of safety...

Shahrnaz

The journey During the civil war in the early 1990s in Afghanistan, my family and I fled to different provinces to stay alive. We eventually migrated to Pakistan. I completed my primary and high school in Pakistan and...