One of the best ways to excel at your job is to start from the bottom and work your way up. Chris Blackwell, Team Assistant with SSI Employment Services, knows this well.
Read more: Chris leads the way to employment success with SSI
Karim* arrived in Australia in 2012 to seek asylum when it became unsafe for him to stay in Iran.
An electrical engineer by trade and with a wealth of experience, he owned and operated his own business in his home town of Shiraz, Iran.
Read more: Karim's small business success while seeking asylum
Arash Bordbar, who came to Australia as a refugee, is taking his passion to help others to an international level in a bid to shed light on the issues affecting young refugees and people seeking asylum.
Read more: Arash Bordbar has a global ambition for helping young refugees
I came to Australia as a refugee in 2009, hoping to find a peaceful place to build a home for my family. Increasing persecution of the Hazara community from which my family and I come meant that our native land, Pakistan, was no longer the safe haven it once had been.
Read more: Muhammad Sadiq: How I came to call Australia home
From the first day I arrived in Australia, it felt like home. Everyone gets homesick sometimes, but if you have goals and dreams, it constantly drives you forward and takes your mind off the past.
At 17, Paz Roman was nominated as Young Australian of the Year, mostly for her volunteer work. Ironically, she wasn’t an Australian. She came here from Chile as a refugee with her family when she was just a baby, and despite living in Australia since then, she struggled with the idea of becoming a citizen.
Read more: Refugee turned citizen feels privileged to have a say
This Australia Day Behrooz Gouniai and his family will be at the beach, like millions of others, celebrating what being Aussie means to them. Behrooz, 64, came to Australia as a refugee more than 30 years ago after being pushed out of Iran first, and then India.
Read more: “Humanity and freedom” celebrated on Australia Day
I am Arzhang Janipour from Iran, and I’m 28. The reason I left Iran was because I had some problems. Of course I am missing my parents my father my mother, my brothers, my sister, my exercises and wrestling, my friends and my job from back in Iran.
My name is Hameed Cina. My life in Australia today is the life of a normal citizen, ordinary by any standard. I’m married, I have two young daughters and I have a good job that I love. I also volunteer a lot of my free time for my community. But the way in which I arrived at this point in my life was definitely not ordinary.
My name is Jamsheed Shaharyar. I am a refugee from Iran.
I was born to a middle class family in Iran, where my wealth was my family and I earned my income from a good job.
