Story Feature: Beyond the Stereotype of Young Refugee Men

Meet Muhammad Ali and Fahad, two individuals who may help you break the stereotype you have of young refugee men in Europe. They were both students from a small Kurdish town in Syria before they fled the war, and have found themselves unable to get farther north than Slovenia on their journey into Europe.

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When I asked them about their hopes for the future, Muhammad responded, “I cannot think of the future I want—I need to go back to school, I need an education for my future. I like to learn and need to learn new languages. We left because of the war and fled through Turkey’s mountains with no food and no water for three days trying to get to Europe. And now we are stuck here. No, I cannot think about the future.

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A Love Affair with Books

Processed with VSCOcam with m3 presetLike many love affairs my adoration for books began with considerable resistance on my part. Until I was around eleven I was pretty neutral towards reading. Back then I was far more enamored by early Saturday mornings spent in front of a television than hours of staring at a bundle of paper.

Then one day my parents came up with an ingenious plan I couldn’t refuse; in lieu of an allowance they agreed to pay me one penny for every page I read. As an eleven-year-old I figured I could make bank with this plan. I still remember the next day, going to the library empty-handed, and walking out with a pile of books stacked under my chin, eager to make a whopping $10 over the next few weeks.

What began as a monetary incentive to dive into the world of reading soon morphed into a genuine love for books and what they could unlock—new characters, settings, histories, and fantastic storylines I had never before imagined.

From that day on reading has opened up the world to me in amazing ways. Like a man with poor eyesight gazing up at the stars and only seeing the 10 or 12 most prominent points of light, I had been missing much of the world that was right in front of me. What I needed was to look at the world through the right lens. So, much like that nearsighted man who gapes in awe the first time he looks at the night sky through corrective lenses, reading became my means for seeing and experiencing exciting worlds I never knew existed.

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