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EDUCATION AS A LONG-HELD DREAM MICHELE HATCH Michele Hatch is a volunteer teacher of TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages). Michele has worked with children as a Registered Nurse in a children’s hospital, running a swim school business and teaching English for an Australian notfor-profit in Mexico. When Michele became very sick due to local poor water quality, she wondered why she was not working to make a difference in Australia. Michele completed a Graduate Certificate in TESOL at Macquarie University and was appointed to Farah’s family as a homework helper.
FARAH ALDULAIMI Farah Aldulaimi is an Iraqi asylum seeker living in Sydney, who has received a special scholarship to attend university.
FARAH’S STORY: My name is Farah from Iraq. I’m 18 years old. I came with my family to Australia by boat to seek asylum in 2012. We received a TPV (Temporary Protection Visa) in 2017. Since I was five, I had always felt the urge to move. Me and my family just wanted to take refuge in a place where we could live in peace. Prior coming to Australia I lived in Syria for one year and Greece for five years. During my journey of coming to Australia I travelled to Turkey, Malaysia and Indonesia. These travel experiences led me to learn three different languages including Greek, Arabic and English. I have dark and traumatic childhood stories. This is when my journey started as a refugee child. I thought it was now going to get better but it didn’t as no one was ready to take us. Ever since we left home, we never got permanently accepted to just have a peaceful life without the fear of being deported from the country any second. My parents sacrificed their lives to get me where I’m at now. For this main reason, I want to seek further education to become an independent woman and give back to my family and all the people that helped me on the way. Education is a human right and I believe I
HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDER | VOLUME 29: ISSUE 1 – MARCH 2020
deserve to be given a chance to prove myself. I want to show the world and young refugee girls that they are capable of doing everything and nothing should stop them from fighting towards fulfilling their dreams and becoming independent, proud women. My dream and the career path I’m hoping to pursue is a Bachelor of Architecture. Architecture can satisfy my imagination in space, materials, and colour.
During the HSC I was suffering from anxiety and stress as I wasn’t given the same rights and opportunities as my peers. I am unable to go and continue my studies at university like them because I am a refugee student who came to Australia ‘illegally’ by boat seeking a place where I would live in peace with my family, seeking an education and human rights. So when everyone else in my peer group was focused on HSC studying or what to study at uni or what dress to pick for graduation, I was affected by severe stress, thinking, will I even be able to make it that far, or how is
