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I came from Afghanistan. | 0:00:18 | 0:00:20 | |
I was quite happy there with my family all together. | 0:00:20 | 0:00:24 | |
I still remember when I was a kid, the mountains and a lot of dust | 0:00:24 | 0:00:30 | |
and the houses aren't that rich like in England. | 0:00:30 | 0:00:33 | |
They're like tents. | 0:00:33 | 0:00:35 | |
There was some fighting and war and it started to build up. | 0:00:35 | 0:00:40 | |
They were sort of taking the good areas, they started to bomb there. | 0:00:40 | 0:00:46 | |
Sometimes when I looked out the window, I felt quite sad. | 0:00:47 | 0:00:52 | |
So then my grandma had decided all of us go | 0:00:52 | 0:00:56 | |
to a safer place in Europe. | 0:00:56 | 0:00:58 | |
By the time we got to the airport, | 0:00:58 | 0:01:00 | |
I remember they let my grandma in, then me but not my family. | 0:01:00 | 0:01:04 | |
They said they didn't have passports. | 0:01:04 | 0:01:06 | |
Then they had to go back. | 0:01:06 | 0:01:08 | |
We thought that they were on another plane. | 0:01:10 | 0:01:13 | |
But when we got to England, they weren't there. | 0:01:13 | 0:01:17 | |
We thought, something must have happened, | 0:01:17 | 0:01:19 | |
they might be alive, you never know. | 0:01:19 | 0:01:22 | |
I had nightmares about my mum picking me up from school | 0:01:22 | 0:01:26 | |
and then when my eyes opened up, | 0:01:26 | 0:01:28 | |
I realised it was just a dream, it wasn't real. | 0:01:28 | 0:01:32 | |
Then, every night I was crying, I was always dreaming about them. | 0:01:32 | 0:01:38 | |
It was like my bones were broken. I felt really hungry, really sad. | 0:01:38 | 0:01:44 | |
I went to school, I learned new things there. | 0:01:46 | 0:01:49 | |
It was really frustrating that I couldn't speak English. | 0:01:49 | 0:01:53 | |
The only word I knew was yes. | 0:01:53 | 0:01:55 | |
Sometimes I get embarrassed that I don't know the word. | 0:01:55 | 0:02:00 | |
The thing I was doing was sitting in the corner, doing nothing, | 0:02:00 | 0:02:04 | |
watching other people play and sometimes people came to play with me | 0:02:04 | 0:02:09 | |
and then I started to play with them. | 0:02:09 | 0:02:11 | |
I found new friends. | 0:02:12 | 0:02:14 | |
I started practising football with them. | 0:02:14 | 0:02:16 | |
Everyone was amazed by my pictures | 0:02:18 | 0:02:21 | |
because I was a really good drawer. | 0:02:21 | 0:02:23 | |
I had something special to show them every day, | 0:02:23 | 0:02:25 | |
pictures of my family, my mum and dad, me, | 0:02:25 | 0:02:29 | |
Spiderman, because I like Spiderman. | 0:02:29 | 0:02:31 | |
Sometimes I would draw pictures of football | 0:02:31 | 0:02:35 | |
because I like football and it made me happy. | 0:02:35 | 0:02:38 | |
When I keep on imagining my family, I want them to come here. | 0:02:38 | 0:02:43 | |
Four-and-a-half years passed and then we had a phone call. | 0:02:45 | 0:02:50 | |
My cousin said that they saw my dad in the mosque praying | 0:02:50 | 0:02:55 | |
and then they handed the phone to my dad | 0:02:55 | 0:02:57 | |
and I started to talk with my dad, | 0:02:57 | 0:03:00 | |
my mum and dad and then I was more happy. | 0:03:00 | 0:03:04 | |
My first wish would be for my mum and dad to come to this country | 0:03:04 | 0:03:08 | |
because it feels like... | 0:03:08 | 0:03:10 | |
It's actually going to happen but I get upset | 0:03:10 | 0:03:13 | |
and I wish they could come right now. | 0:03:13 | 0:03:16 | |
I can't wait for that day. | 0:03:16 | 0:03:18 | |
The streets would be full of people selling food. | 0:03:37 | 0:03:40 | |
The food would have... | 0:03:40 | 0:03:43 | |
If you're selling food on the street, it would have flies on it. | 0:03:43 | 0:03:48 | |
On the buses, because it's a really small country | 0:03:48 | 0:03:52 | |
and there's lots of people stuffed in, there's no place to sit. | 0:03:52 | 0:03:55 | |
If you're sat, even if you're a baby, | 0:03:55 | 0:03:58 | |
you have to get off the seat for a bigger person. | 0:03:58 | 0:04:02 | |
Then the streets had dust so if the wind blew, | 0:04:02 | 0:04:06 | |
it would go in your eyes. | 0:04:06 | 0:04:08 | |
I don't know why the war started. | 0:04:10 | 0:04:13 | |
Eritrea, a long time ago, used to be a big country, | 0:04:13 | 0:04:17 | |
then they split it with Ethiopia. | 0:04:17 | 0:04:19 | |
Since we split from Ethiopia, we got the Red Sea. | 0:04:19 | 0:04:23 | |
The war started because they wanted the Red Sea. | 0:04:23 | 0:04:27 | |
Then all this war happened, lots of people had to get away | 0:04:27 | 0:04:31 | |
and we didn't have lots of airplanes | 0:04:31 | 0:04:33 | |
because everybody was moving, moving. | 0:04:33 | 0:04:35 | |
I remember that we had to leave when I was a young age. | 0:04:37 | 0:04:44 | |
My dad couldn't come because he knew secrets. | 0:04:44 | 0:04:49 | |
The guy that's leading us right now is very, very bad | 0:04:49 | 0:04:53 | |
and my dad wanted to escape but he couldn't. | 0:04:53 | 0:04:55 | |
They said to him, | 0:04:55 | 0:04:57 | |
"If you tell people of our secrets, we will kill your wife," and me. | 0:04:57 | 0:05:02 | |
He told and we had to run. | 0:05:02 | 0:05:04 | |
I remember that we got on a plane then I slept. | 0:05:05 | 0:05:10 | |
I knew it was a really long journey and sometimes we took buses. | 0:05:10 | 0:05:15 | |
I fell asleep a lot of times. Then at the end, we arrived in England. | 0:05:15 | 0:05:23 | |
It was very hard to fit in with hardly any English. | 0:05:23 | 0:05:27 | |
I started school and I was very scared cos I didn't have no friends. | 0:05:28 | 0:05:35 | |
Everybody had groups. | 0:05:35 | 0:05:37 | |
One day, this boy, who fell out with a group. | 0:05:38 | 0:05:42 | |
Me and him, we said, "Why don't we be friends?" | 0:05:42 | 0:05:47 | |
Then we joined other people's groups so we made lots of friends. | 0:05:47 | 0:05:52 | |
A few weeks later, I came back from school. | 0:05:54 | 0:05:57 | |
There were lots of ladies in my house. My mum was on the bed. | 0:05:57 | 0:06:02 | |
I asked her, "Why was everybody crying?" | 0:06:02 | 0:06:05 | |
She said, "I have something to confess to you. | 0:06:05 | 0:06:10 | |
"Your dad, he died there." I started crying, then she started crying. | 0:06:10 | 0:06:15 | |
I told her to stop crying. | 0:06:15 | 0:06:17 | |
She said, "I'll stop crying if you stop crying." | 0:06:17 | 0:06:20 | |
We both ended up stopped crying. | 0:06:20 | 0:06:22 | |
For a few days, I stopped eating. | 0:06:24 | 0:06:27 | |
I only drank a little bit | 0:06:27 | 0:06:28 | |
and I couldn't finish my dinner at school. | 0:06:28 | 0:06:31 | |
Mum came to me and she said, "You don't have to be very upset | 0:06:31 | 0:06:36 | |
"because, that is why we left home, because it was dangerous." | 0:06:36 | 0:06:40 | |
I started feeling OK and it is right that we should have come here. | 0:06:42 | 0:06:49 | |
It got better. | 0:06:49 | 0:06:51 | |
I made a lot of friends. We don't talk about our lives at home. | 0:06:51 | 0:06:57 | |
We don't talk about this stuff. | 0:06:57 | 0:06:59 | |
We don't talk about sad things, we talk about good things. | 0:06:59 | 0:07:03 | |
We don't mention the sad things, we act like they never happened. | 0:07:03 | 0:07:06 | |
My friend, when I am feeling sad, he always comes up with a joke | 0:07:06 | 0:07:11 | |
and cheers me up. | 0:07:11 | 0:07:13 | |
When he is feeling sad, I come up with a joke and cheer him up. | 0:07:13 | 0:07:17 | |
I was very young when my mum left me. I was three-and-a-half. | 0:07:35 | 0:07:39 | |
I don't know why she left me. | 0:07:40 | 0:07:42 | |
People were trying to kill her or something. | 0:07:42 | 0:07:45 | |
People from the church that we used to go to took care of me. | 0:07:45 | 0:07:50 | |
They brought me up. I just learned to be my own mother and father. | 0:07:50 | 0:07:57 | |
I thought that I had no mother or father. | 0:07:57 | 0:08:00 | |
I knew she was out there somewhere for me. | 0:08:00 | 0:08:02 | |
You would have 30 children eating from one plate | 0:08:04 | 0:08:08 | |
and it was a really big plate. | 0:08:08 | 0:08:11 | |
You only have a small amount of food. Enough to feed one person. | 0:08:12 | 0:08:17 | |
I did not have anything to eat for about a week. | 0:08:20 | 0:08:24 | |
The only thing I survived on was water | 0:08:24 | 0:08:26 | |
and that water wasn't really clean. | 0:08:26 | 0:08:29 | |
It had snails and dirty stuff inside it, | 0:08:29 | 0:08:34 | |
but you have no choice but to drink it. | 0:08:34 | 0:08:36 | |
You would watch other kids walk past you. They would laugh at you. | 0:08:37 | 0:08:44 | |
There are saying, "You are dumb." | 0:08:44 | 0:08:46 | |
When people are playing, I would be sitting by myself, | 0:08:46 | 0:08:50 | |
reading my book or crying and looking at others. | 0:08:50 | 0:08:56 | |
I left the orphanage | 0:08:56 | 0:09:00 | |
and then I got put in this big dark lorry with 200 other people. | 0:09:00 | 0:09:06 | |
They started driving me away. | 0:09:07 | 0:09:10 | |
Because I was the little one, I was close to the door. | 0:09:10 | 0:09:17 | |
I saw this lady, she had no shoes. | 0:09:17 | 0:09:20 | |
All she was wearing was a pair of jogging bottoms and a T-shirt | 0:09:20 | 0:09:24 | |
and she was running and screaming my name. | 0:09:24 | 0:09:28 | |
I looked at her and I remembered her face. That was my mum. | 0:09:28 | 0:09:33 | |
I started crying and I know it might sound strange, but I don't know | 0:09:33 | 0:09:39 | |
where I got the power, but I jumped from the back of a lorry onto her. | 0:09:39 | 0:09:44 | |
Then me and her started holding each other, screaming. | 0:09:44 | 0:09:47 | |
I could not believe it was so real. | 0:09:47 | 0:09:49 | |
From that point on, everything turned around in my life. | 0:09:51 | 0:09:57 | |
My mum, she went to the British Embassy and the people gave me | 0:09:57 | 0:10:03 | |
a visa and we boarded the plane and we arrived in Heathrow. | 0:10:03 | 0:10:08 | |
My first day at school, it was really tough. | 0:10:11 | 0:10:14 | |
I mumbled because I was afraid to speak to people. | 0:10:14 | 0:10:18 | |
I often got anxious and got panic attacks. | 0:10:18 | 0:10:23 | |
There comes a time where I am sitting there in class | 0:10:23 | 0:10:26 | |
and I don't understand what is going on. | 0:10:26 | 0:10:29 | |
There is this click in the back of my mind. | 0:10:29 | 0:10:32 | |
What if I get home and my mum is not there? | 0:10:32 | 0:10:35 | |
That is the moment where my heart starts pumping really fast. | 0:10:36 | 0:10:41 | |
I start breathing really fast. | 0:10:41 | 0:10:43 | |
Before you know it, I pass out. | 0:10:43 | 0:10:47 | |
In school, they have created this special group. | 0:10:47 | 0:10:53 | |
Whenever I am feeling angry, sad or anxious, I go there. | 0:10:53 | 0:10:58 | |
There will always be someone I can talk to, | 0:10:58 | 0:11:02 | |
who I can tell what is going on. | 0:11:02 | 0:11:05 | |
They will try to fix it as much as possible. | 0:11:05 | 0:11:09 | |
I am really improving my socialising skills. | 0:11:09 | 0:11:14 | |
I am a fighter and a survivor and no matter how much you go through, | 0:11:14 | 0:11:20 | |
no matter how much you suffer, | 0:11:20 | 0:11:24 | |
you are always going to be accepted for who you are. | 0:11:24 | 0:11:27 | |
One day, you will be like this shining star. | 0:11:27 | 0:11:32 | |
At the end of every dark tunnel, there is always a rainbow. | 0:11:32 | 0:11:36 | |
Life, in my country, was quite distressing. | 0:11:52 | 0:11:58 | |
I didn't attend school because my mother | 0:11:58 | 0:12:01 | |
was a member of a particular religion that my country doesn't favour. | 0:12:01 | 0:12:06 | |
I could see other children around me experiencing a normal childhood, | 0:12:06 | 0:12:10 | |
going to school and playing outside with their friends. | 0:12:10 | 0:12:13 | |
I felt very different. | 0:12:13 | 0:12:14 | |
Because, in the UK, being a Christian is not a problem, but, | 0:12:16 | 0:12:21 | |
in my country, which is a predominantly Muslim country, it wasn't a favoured | 0:12:21 | 0:12:26 | |
religion or tradition. My mum kept going secretly to church on Sundays. | 0:12:26 | 0:12:32 | |
When the police invaded the secret services that they were having, | 0:12:32 | 0:12:36 | |
the whole atmosphere was full of flames. | 0:12:36 | 0:12:39 | |
It felt like everything was going to burst out. | 0:12:39 | 0:12:42 | |
My mum was treated very bad from the local citizens | 0:12:42 | 0:12:46 | |
and she felt like she wanted to escape somewhere. | 0:12:46 | 0:12:49 | |
We secretly decided to leave. We didn't let anyone know. | 0:12:52 | 0:12:57 | |
I think my father found someone to take us at the back of a lorry, I think it was. | 0:12:57 | 0:13:03 | |
We were clutched together. We slept and slept. | 0:13:04 | 0:13:09 | |
It was very dark so we couldn't see whether daylight had come. | 0:13:09 | 0:13:13 | |
We lost track of time. | 0:13:13 | 0:13:15 | |
It was a journey that we didn't know where it would lead to. | 0:13:15 | 0:13:22 | |
We got to the UK. | 0:13:25 | 0:13:27 | |
I began to experience the childhood that I had been dreaming about. | 0:13:27 | 0:13:31 | |
I had friends, played outside very comfortably and safe. | 0:13:31 | 0:13:36 | |
I had a normal family life. | 0:13:36 | 0:13:40 | |
But then the decision letter came that we had been rejected | 0:13:40 | 0:13:43 | |
leave to remain in this country. | 0:13:43 | 0:13:45 | |
It was the letter that changed everything. | 0:13:46 | 0:13:48 | |
This one piece of paper changed my whole life once again. | 0:13:48 | 0:13:53 | |
At six o'clock in the morning, these huge men like monsters, | 0:13:55 | 0:14:00 | |
they came to our house and put us in a van. | 0:14:00 | 0:14:04 | |
They took us to a detention centre. | 0:14:04 | 0:14:08 | |
There is a lot of closed doors banging all the time. | 0:14:08 | 0:14:12 | |
Huge walls that you can't see from. | 0:14:12 | 0:14:15 | |
I used to look up over the wall and think, | 0:14:15 | 0:14:17 | |
"I wish I could fly and just escape." | 0:14:17 | 0:14:20 | |
I can remember once I held the bars in my hands. | 0:14:21 | 0:14:25 | |
I couldn't believe that I was in prison in the UK | 0:14:25 | 0:14:32 | |
for doing nothing, for being a child, for escaping to safety. | 0:14:32 | 0:14:36 | |
We had received good news that we would be let out | 0:14:38 | 0:14:42 | |
and I started living normally once again, but with fear | 0:14:42 | 0:14:47 | |
that this would happen again and it did happen again. | 0:14:47 | 0:14:50 | |
They had taken us straight to the airport | 0:14:50 | 0:14:52 | |
and then we were sent back to our country. | 0:14:52 | 0:14:56 | |
They didn't welcome us at all. | 0:14:56 | 0:14:58 | |
They looked at us with hostility and hatred. | 0:14:58 | 0:15:01 | |
They just thought, OK, why did you go to that country? | 0:15:01 | 0:15:04 | |
Why did you go to the UK? | 0:15:04 | 0:15:06 | |
And then, my mum fainted because they had hit her across the head. | 0:15:06 | 0:15:14 | |
And then, we travelled from place to place, searching out some help. | 0:15:14 | 0:15:21 | |
But it was obvious that we wouldn't get any help, | 0:15:21 | 0:15:23 | |
so it was then that my mum decided we had to leave once again. | 0:15:23 | 0:15:30 | |
And then, she found an agent and then we were brought back to the UK. | 0:15:30 | 0:15:36 | |
We were taken to our new home. | 0:15:40 | 0:15:43 | |
The people were very, very kind to us, very welcoming. I felt very safe. | 0:15:43 | 0:15:47 | |
And I just lived normally, but there was also that fear within me | 0:15:48 | 0:15:54 | |
that it could happen once again, it could happen any time. | 0:15:54 | 0:15:57 | |
We had just received a phone call, I thought it was bad news once again. | 0:15:59 | 0:16:03 | |
But when she said, "I have good news | 0:16:03 | 0:16:06 | |
"for you, you've been granted leave to remain," | 0:16:06 | 0:16:08 | |
I just thought, "Yes, finally!" | 0:16:08 | 0:16:11 | |
That was the decision that saved my whole life. | 0:16:11 | 0:16:14 | |
Now I'm living a normal life. | 0:16:14 | 0:16:16 | |
I have learned from my experiences, of course, | 0:16:16 | 0:16:19 | |
and I want to become a lawyer so I can help people who've also | 0:16:19 | 0:16:23 | |
experienced the same thing, because I know this problem will never end, | 0:16:23 | 0:16:26 | |
people are still suffering everywhere in the world, so hopefully | 0:16:26 | 0:16:29 | |
I want to become an international lawyer to save everyone! | 0:16:29 | 0:16:33 | |
I am 16 years old and I am a Kurdish Iranian. | 0:16:45 | 0:16:48 | |
The reason that we left Iran was that my dad disagreed with | 0:16:49 | 0:16:53 | |
how things were going, he disagreed with the system. | 0:16:53 | 0:16:57 | |
And I remember, my father had to leave the country. | 0:16:57 | 0:17:00 | |
Of course, his life was in danger when he left. | 0:17:00 | 0:17:03 | |
It was kind of the story of many people | 0:17:03 | 0:17:05 | |
against the Iranian Government. | 0:17:05 | 0:17:07 | |
I suppose my father was lucky that he got away, | 0:17:07 | 0:17:09 | |
because members of my mum's family, because they were Kurdish, | 0:17:09 | 0:17:12 | |
a lot of them were executed. | 0:17:12 | 0:17:14 | |
The years that followed, my mum kept getting questioned | 0:17:19 | 0:17:22 | |
about where my father had gone. | 0:17:22 | 0:17:23 | |
I remember the night that we were leaving, everyone was really | 0:17:23 | 0:17:27 | |
kind of sad, I didn't really understand why they were sad. | 0:17:27 | 0:17:29 | |
But then eventually, when we got to the airport, | 0:17:29 | 0:17:31 | |
there was that moment I realised that I'm leaving. | 0:17:31 | 0:17:34 | |
And I was upset nearly the whole journey. | 0:17:34 | 0:17:37 | |
In Italy, we had to jump over a fence, | 0:17:39 | 0:17:41 | |
which seemed rather scary to me. | 0:17:41 | 0:17:43 | |
We got stopped by the police and I was scared of the police dog. | 0:17:43 | 0:17:47 | |
It was at night, I think we were going through a little forest | 0:17:47 | 0:17:50 | |
or something, I'm not sure. | 0:17:50 | 0:17:51 | |
But I remember the dogs barking, that scared me. | 0:17:51 | 0:17:55 | |
I remember staying one night inside a cottage, | 0:17:58 | 0:18:01 | |
I think maybe it was around Slovenia, I'm not sure. | 0:18:01 | 0:18:04 | |
I remember the night that we were leaving, outside the cottage, | 0:18:04 | 0:18:07 | |
I felt scared because it was at that point where | 0:18:07 | 0:18:10 | |
I could see the concern on my mum's face. | 0:18:10 | 0:18:12 | |
To get into England, we got into a lorry from France, | 0:18:12 | 0:18:15 | |
the lorry was full of iron bars. | 0:18:15 | 0:18:17 | |
It was the first time throughout the journey where I was really, | 0:18:17 | 0:18:21 | |
really uncomfortable and scared. | 0:18:21 | 0:18:23 | |
I really wanted to get off. | 0:18:23 | 0:18:25 | |
And then, when we finally got over to the UK, | 0:18:25 | 0:18:28 | |
I remember someone cutting open the back of the lorry, | 0:18:28 | 0:18:32 | |
kind of like one of these movies where the sunlight comes in. | 0:18:32 | 0:18:37 | |
Then we came out and I remember the British Border Agency, | 0:18:37 | 0:18:41 | |
they were really friendly. And then, of course, | 0:18:41 | 0:18:44 | |
it was around that day that I saw my dad after, like, two or three years. | 0:18:44 | 0:18:48 | |
And it was the weirdest thing, because it wasn't what you | 0:18:48 | 0:18:51 | |
would expect, running to your dad, hugging him. | 0:18:51 | 0:18:54 | |
At first, I didn't recognise who it was. | 0:18:54 | 0:18:56 | |
And then after a while, he told me how he was my dad and, | 0:18:56 | 0:19:00 | |
you know, he's missed me so much | 0:19:00 | 0:19:01 | |
and I remember sitting in the back and my mum was sitting in the front, | 0:19:01 | 0:19:04 | |
I remember it was that night, | 0:19:04 | 0:19:06 | |
the whole journey, I just kept looking at him, | 0:19:06 | 0:19:10 | |
trying to figure out what's going on, who he is. | 0:19:10 | 0:19:12 | |
And then, slowly, I got more and more comfortable towards him. | 0:19:14 | 0:19:17 | |
The first few days at school were really hard on me, | 0:19:20 | 0:19:23 | |
not because of the other students or teachers, | 0:19:23 | 0:19:25 | |
but not knowing anything, just literally being an outsider. | 0:19:25 | 0:19:30 | |
That was really scary for me. | 0:19:30 | 0:19:31 | |
The memory I have was that the school had started and | 0:19:33 | 0:19:36 | |
they had closed the fences, and at break time my mum came to say hello. | 0:19:36 | 0:19:41 | |
And then when she did come, I talked to her, | 0:19:41 | 0:19:43 | |
and then once the bell rang to start lessons again, | 0:19:43 | 0:19:47 | |
I remember holding on to the fence as if it was some sort of prison. | 0:19:47 | 0:19:51 | |
You could feel, literally not knowing what someone around you | 0:19:54 | 0:19:57 | |
is saying, even though they're being friendly, you could tell by | 0:19:57 | 0:20:00 | |
the smiles and facial expressions that they're being friendly, | 0:20:00 | 0:20:04 | |
not knowing what their meaning was, it was quite scary for me. | 0:20:04 | 0:20:08 | |
There was a mixed variety of, um, backgrounds | 0:20:11 | 0:20:15 | |
and the fact that there were refugee kids at that school | 0:20:15 | 0:20:19 | |
and this centre where you would go to after school to be with | 0:20:19 | 0:20:22 | |
other kids was a great support, | 0:20:22 | 0:20:26 | |
so even though the first few months were really uncomfortable, | 0:20:26 | 0:20:30 | |
having that sense of atmosphere was a great help. | 0:20:30 | 0:20:33 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:20:57 | 0:21:00 |