Both Imran and I are qualified accountants but for some time we could not get accountancy work, despite applying for many jobs. It didn’t matter that we had good qualifications and several years of experience from Kenya. Everyone said we needed Australian experience....
I'm a banking lawyer. I’ve got a very Australian accent. Sometimes people say things to me like that refugees are not really refugees, that they are just business opportunists. I then say, ‘Well, I’m a refugee from Laos, does that change your opinion?’ With that,...
My father wanted me to go to medical school. But I don’t like biology, or blood. We had arguments. I told him that it was my choice. In the end, I went to study engineering. In my second year, I chose to specialise in power mechanical engineering, where only about 1%...
When I was 8 years old and my brother 11, we used to go to the riverbank every day after school to collect stones and break them so that we could afford the pens and pencils we needed for school. I was born in Bhutan in 1986. But when I was 5, my family had to flee...
When they were around 11 years old, both my two older brothers were taken by the military into the child soldier program in South Sudan. That happened before I was even born, so I never knew them. My memories of growing up are of war, and constantly moving. Whenever...
I was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which was at war for much of my life. When I was 21, my parents and siblings and I took refuge in Kenya at the refugee camp in Kakuma, the biggest camp in Africa. Life was not easy there. Access to food, education and...
