The Happy Pod: Success stories of former refugees

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1:26Razan Alsous:This is the Happy Pod from the BBC World Service

1:35Razan Alsous:I'm Holly Gibbs and in this special edition we are marking World Refugee Day We'll be bringing you some extraordinary stories of people who have fled their homes in search of safety and have thrived despite their difficult beginnings

1:52Razan Alsous:I'm joined by Tam Patachako, a BBC journalist who's recently joined our team. Tam, tell us why this episode is particularly relevant to you.

2:01Mohamed Semra:Well, I was actually born in a refugee camp. I lived in Yarugusu, which is one of the biggest refugee camps in the world, according to the UN, and I lived there for the first eight years of my life. We all used to listen to the radio, and one of the most popular radio stations that we used to listen to was BBC Swahili. For the first eight years of my life, I just thought the BBC was a Tanzanian broadcasting channel. And so to be sitting here today, it's kind of like a full circle moment for me.

2:27Razan Alsous:And for those listening, can you describe what the camp looks like?

2:30Mohamed Semra:Well, Nyarugusu is, you know, in the middle of the savannas in West Tanzania. So whenever I close my eyes, the first thing I can see is the red soil. You know, everything is red from the mud brick houses to the thatched roofs. And I can actually almost smell the ripe fruit. We had mango trees on every single corner. You know, at night, it was so beautiful because we didn't have streetlights. And so each night, you would have a full set of stars in the sky. And it was honestly something I took for granted. But whenever I close my eyes and picture Nyarugusu once again, those are the first things that come to mind.

3:04Mohamed Semra:It wasn't perfect, but it was beautiful for what it was.

3:07Razan Alsous:You've painted quite a happy picture there. But for some people, they might imagine a refugee camp to be quite a scary place.

3:13Mohamed Semra:The thing that you have to understand is that refugee camp was one big family. Everyone there was from the same part of the DRC. We all were basically somewhat related. We all spoke the same language. We all ate the same food. And we all had just each other to help each other out. And yes, it was in the middle of a savannah. So at night, under that starry sky I mentioned, you do also get to hear wolves howling in a distance. And sometimes you would hear them outside of your house sniffing. But it was a beautiful place because we had each other.

3:46Razan Alsous:And as you say, you moved here 17 years ago. What is your first memory of arriving to England?

3:53Mohamed Semra:The first thing was how cold it was. And it's shocking that I'm talking about how bad English weather was. But that is genuinely the first thing I can remember when I came off the plane was the hairs on my body kind of just rose because I felt so cold. And bearing in mind, this was in the middle of spring in 2009. So for the first couple of days after we arrived in England, we were in a small hotel in South London. And every single morning we would be obviously we were given breakfast and it was a full English breakfast and it was baked beans. I wanted something that reminded me of Tanzania again.

4:26Mohamed Semra:I wanted something that was comforting, something that I'd been used to for the first eight years of my life.

4:31Razan Alsous:Well, that brings us onto our first story of Razan Alsous, who fled Syria and moved to Yorkshire in the north of England. Like Tam, she wanted a taste of home and now runs a cheese business.

4:46Holly Gibbs:So what makes the squeaky cheese different from other cheeses, we coagulate the milk first, then cook it. and this is where the character of the cheese is developed and you will have the sounds of squeakiness when you eat it. Razan told us what gave her the idea. So I had my residency within a month but for my husband it took him around two years. So basically after a year searching for a job and no one hired me or were interested in hiring me I just thought I need to do something and I started to think how to become a self-employed I came across different ideas until I spotted once that halloumi was seasonal product in supermarket at the same time I loved the milk in the UK and from this point the idea started to sparkle and I start to think about how about making halloumi cheese I applied for startup loan and we managed with this 2 ,500 pounds to find second-hand equipment not being made to make cheese here where my husband support because he's an engineer he managed to change the usage of this equipment to make cheese and after four months we had the first award which was the World Cheese Award.

6:20So we arrived to the UK in 2012, 2013 when I started to think about my business idea

6:28Holly Gibbs:and in 2014 when we had the approval that was in June and by like October time we had the

6:36Razan Alsous:cognition. In fact, Razan was so successful that by 2017, she needed to expand her business with a new factory. And in recognition of her achievements, it was opened by a member of the British royal family, Princess Anne.

6:55Razan Alsous:Razan proudly showed her around in front of TV cameras and press photographers. Razan says the business has also helped her feel part of a new community.

7:04Holly Gibbs:The local people were really, really amazing and supportive. Whenever I told anyone about my business idea, they were always amazed. They loved what I'm doing or what I'm planning to do. And I've got still friends since day one when I remember when I was telling them, oh, you know what, I'm thinking of doing this and that and starting this business. They were very supportive and I'm friends with them until today. I went back to Syria last Christmas after the regime has been collapsed, after 14 years being away. And the first impression, I was very sad to see how Damascus became. But you know what?

7:51Holly Gibbs:Again, you just go to the old places which you loved in the past. You start to memorize your childhood. and the most amazing part when I took my children I start to tell them the story about each place and I love to see Syria or Damascus from my kids point of view because they've looked at it from British perspective because they grown up in here so they looked at it in different angle and I loved that view. I love to see it from different angles. And I found how humans are just the same, but being in different locations will act in different ways.

8:35Razan Alsous:Razan Alsous there. And listening to that, Tam, is there anything that you relate to?

8:40Mohamed Semra:One of the things that really struck out to me was what she said towards the end, she talked about how she took her children back to Syria. I've never had the sort of like opportunity to go back to Tanzania or to Nyarugosu to kind of see what it was like. And I always kind of like wonder you know what sort of different memories would I unlock if I were to go back I mentioned earlier that I can remember certain like smells and sort of like the atmosphere but that only scratches the surface right imagine how many more memories I would unlock if I actually went there and I could actually smell those things in person it's beautiful that sort of connection that she wants her children to have with where she came from and I don't know maybe in the future I might go back there with my own children.

9:16Razan Alsous:So then you came to the UK how did that happen?

9:20Mohamed Semra:Well I'm going to tell you how it happened from the perspective of an eight-year-old um from what i remember one day my mother told me that we would be moving to a country called the uk i remember like one of the first few things me and my brothers did is that we got out a little atlas and we sort of started to kind of like search where the uk was on the map and then we found it it's like you know somewhere in northern europe and you know really far away i was kind of just thinking we're just gonna go on a little trip somewhere you know to some far away country where it snows and there's ice and there's all these mystical things.

9:53Mohamed Semra:I didn't really have any sense of a notion of, you know, migrating to a different country.

9:58Razan Alsous:That brings us on to Mohamed Semra, who fled Sudan with his mother and six siblings. He moved to Australia at the age of three and, aged just 27, has become the country's first mayor from sub-Saharan Africa. It's now my great pleasure to introduce our mayor, Councillor Mohamed Semra.

10:18Tam Patachako:On behalf of the City of Melbourne, I welcome you all, especially those becoming Australian citizens today. Congratulations. So when we came to Australia, we were lucky that we had strong support. But withstanding, my mum had a lot of barriers, right? There was a language barrier. There was an employment barrier, obviously. And so she struggled immensely because the Sudanese community wasn't as established as it is now. But my mom has shown immense courage, leadership and compassion. And, you know, she helps out wherever she can. Growing up as a visibly African, visibly different person of colour, it did come with its challenges.

11:02Tam Patachako:You know, I faced a lot of instances of racism. You know, Australia is one of the most diverse places in the world. But, you know, that's not represented in our leaders. And so I joined my local youth advisory committee in my local council. I joined debating at my school. I joined leadership team, became school captain. You know, I volunteered in different spaces. And I began to see that decisions are being made for the community without the community being there. Young people like me aren't supposed to run for office. vote for our community vote for change vote one Muhammad Sama and I decided to put my hands up and I put my hands up initially as a statement a statement that young people are ready to lead but also to encourage others to do the same because you can't be what you can't see I ran in 2020 during COVID and I lost because like you couldn't door knock you couldn't letter box and I kept forgetting that no one really knew who I was it was a public statement that my community didn't want me to represent them And I told myself I was never going to run for politics again.

12:08Tam Patachako:And I'm never going to get elected with a name like Mohammed. I'm never going to get elected being obviously visibly African. Come 2023, I get invited to a business leaders lunch with President Barack Obama. And when I went there, Obama had spoken about how he lost his first congressional race. I had left that conference saying to myself that I owed it to myself. I owed it to my community to give it another shot. Hey guys, my name is Mohamed Semra. I'm currently running as an independent for the upcoming Melbourne City Council elections. So come 2024, the campaign elections were approaching and I had backed myself and said, you know, the mission is still the same.

12:46Tam Patachako:There are challenges facing our community. There are national debates that aren't depicting our community in a positive way. I hereby declare Mohamed Semra as elected councillor. Hey guys, Mohamed Semra here. Just got sworn into Melbourne City Council with my wonderful councillors. Then, you know, I got elected as a councillor and six months ago I was elected mayor. Before I put up my hands for this role, I sat with three questions. Can I do it? Should I do it? And will Melbourne be better off for it? The answer is yes. The first mayor for sub-Saharan Africa in Australia.

13:23Razan Alsous:You don't really see people that look like us in higher places. That's really important.

13:27Tam Patachako:But African mums, they always point him out and say, this is Mohammed, he's the mayor, he's a role model. I wish I was in high school seeing that my mayor looked like me

13:40Leo Ajkic:and looked like one of my brothers, because it means that that now opens a door that maybe I didn't even know was available to me.

13:45Tam Patachako:And I get so many young people that come up to me, you know, from refugee backgrounds, from migrant backgrounds, or young people more broadly, that tell me that they want to run in the future, that they want to be a part of shaping decisions.

13:57Razan Alsous:Mohamed Semra.

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