The day I was told that I could come and live in England was the happiest of my life – for it meant that I would no longer be forced to move from country to country in search of sanctuary.

My family had been forced to flee from Afghanistan to Iran three times as regimes changed and foreigners intervened in the country. When the Taliban took over, I was forced to flee yet again. I was a teenager at the time and had no formal education.

I moved around the world trying to find a permanent home, spending time in Iran, Turkey and Russia before finding temporary sanctuary in Cuba. I learned Spanish well enough to register for a university course and was half way through my first year when I was told I must find somewhere else to go. That somewhere was the UK, which accepted me as a refugee. I had to learn English almost from scratch. I wanted to understand this society to make it my home.

Utilising the Spanish I had learned in Cuba, I studied for a degree in Hispanic Studies. My strong wish for education had finally overcome many obstacles when I graduated from the University Sheffield in 2010 and subsequently developed a career as an interpreter in Spanish, Farsi and Dari.
Weston Park