I grew up in a small Mon village in Myanmar. It was very far away from the city, but it was not a safe place. The military often came and took our food, or forced us to do free labour for them. They did it to my grandfather, they did it to my father and then, when I...

There was a veterinary exam I could take to be allowed to work in Australia, but I had heard it was really difficult. It would test everything I had learnt in my entire five-year degree, which I had done not only 15 years earlier, but also in Italian. And it would...

I thought my English would be fine in Australia, but as soon as we arrived, I had to face a new reality. My husband’s friend came to pick us from the airport, and although I was trying my best to understand what he was saying and the jokes he was making, I couldn’t...

To escape the war in Syria, I needed to get a passport. So every day, from 6am till 5pm, I would patiently stand in line outside the immigration office. This was highly stressful because at that time cannons and machine guns were being fired from the top of the...

By the time I finished medical school, riots and chaos were constant in Venezuela. Sometimes I felt like I was trapped in George Orwell's 1984! For example, I needed to trade things with my colleagues like toilet paper or deodorant. And we didn’t even have basic...

When America invaded Iraq, life became very tough. Suddenly, everything was closed, and there was no more school for me. Every night, we ran to the basement of a hotel opposite our house, for safety. It was pretty scary. I still remember hearing the rockets nearby and...