I have a lot of precious memories from Syria, especially from my first year at university, which was wonderful and eye opening. I was following my passion in Environmental Science in Damascus, and my life was going well. But that year, the war broke out. At first, my...
Of about 70 people in our family, nearly everyone was killed by the Khmer Rouge. They targeted anyone who could be a threat, who didn’t conform to their ideals, who wasn’t full blooded Cambodian, or who had any education beyond high school, as they believed everyone...
When the second civil war broke out in Sudan, my father decided to send my brothers and I to Ethiopia, both for protection from abduction, but also because the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) had said we would receive an education there in refugee camps. At...
I’ve had polio in my left leg from when I was a child but we never had any qualified doctor to diagnose my condition. Then, when I was 6 years old, we had to flee our little village because of the attacks on Karen people in our area. It was really hard for my dad...
When I was 7, my family left Czechoslovakia because things had became progressively worse in the 20 years since it was occupied by the Russians – there was no freedom of speech, and they had slowly obliterated the Czech way of life. Fleeing was very risky at that time...