ISIS forced 250 000 Christian families out of their homes in our village in Iraq. If you didn’t leave your house, you would be killed. They were also taking girls, and those girls never came back. My sister and I had been trying to get my parents to leave for a while...
My name is George, but everybody calls me Ginger George! I was born in Syria and my background is Armenian, but in both communities ginger hair is extremely rare. Even in my entire family, there is no one who has ginger hair and sometimes I ask my mum, ‘Are you sure...
In Iran, I had a job as a researcher in Aquatic Animal Health. But opportunities to grow and develop a profile in national and international levels for a female scientist were very limited, so it was always in the back of my mind to leave. Still, when I told my...
I am from the Sayed denomination in the Hazara group in Afghanistan – a minority within a minority. We are actually one of the most persecuted minority groups in the world. In our tribe, my family were very well respected, and that was both our strength and our...
The war came to Damascus when I was 14 years old. At first, it didn’t really affect our lives too much, but after a couple of years, it became very dangerous and scary. A lot of students lost their hands or feet in bomb attacks on our school, and some of them died....
