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...

I was very much a rock star in the legal profession in Malaysia. I rose very quickly, and by my fifth year out of uni, I was in a managerial position. But when I came to Australia in my 20s, I had to eat humble pie. I was hired by a partner at a law firm who had...

I was born in a small town in Venezuela called Barquisimeto. When I was 9, my parents divorced, and after that my mother pretty much raised us by herself. It was a very tough time for me, as I was really close to my dad, and my brothers closer to my mum. I was always...

I was backpacking through Vietnam when I met this redheaded Aussie guy with weird looking facial hair and a mullet. We started to chat and spent the next 36 hours inseparable. But we were only mates, and when we said goodbye, we just gave each other a hug. After that,...

My father stepped on a landmine and was brought home to us in pieces in a casket. After that, my mother was left alone, in a hostile environment, with four kids under the age of fifteen. She was Catholic Croatian and my father was Orthodox Serbian. It was very unusual...