My husband and I are from Delhi. But we chose to come to Wagga Wagga to do our PhDs, as we thought it would be a good place to raise our two-year-old daughter. At first, I felt homesick and experienced a little culture shock – everything was so quiet! But I soon...
I was in prison for 17 years, 6 months and 16 days. At university, I started reading underground communist propaganda, which was dangerous. At that time in Burma, there was a one-party military dictatorship, and if you were caught with a communist paper, it was a 10...
When the 1993 civil war went through Burundi, my father was in Geneva studying Environmental Studies on a workplace scholarship. At that time, the soldiers were targeting educated men and they came to our house one evening to find my father. When they couldn’t find...
I was always a rebel. I always believed in myself, and wanted the best. If someone told me I couldn’t do it, I questioned why not? I have the same two hands, two legs, two eyes, the same 24 hours in one day. So even though we weren’t well off, I decided I wanted to...
In rural Japan in the 90s, girls were told they didn’t need further education because, in the end, they would just get married. So my parents didn’t support me to go to university, even though I really wanted to go. Instead, I started to dream of coming to Australia...
I was 5 when my family had to flee Azerbaijan. My father had supplied computers to the previous political party, and when the new party came into power, they started to imprison anyone who had been associated with the previous party. They didn’t imprison my father but...
