I had a good and for a boy-my-age normal life in my city. I lived in an apartment with my family and would go to school. I had two hobbies and one of them is chess and the other one is swimming; back in Syria I took a swimming certificate. I had many friends and would work on my computer, which is something that I like a lot and also would like to work with sometime in the future. Two careers I have in my mind and would like to explore are soft engineering and data science.  One day some men from the mosque came to my house and said that the government would bomb the area in Aleppo where I lived, and so I went out to the countryside to a small village, where my family originally is from near Turkey. I remember that I one day had climbed to the roof of the house together with my cousin, and I stood there and looked at a huge plane that made a lot of noise and suddenly dropped a bomb that left a cloud of smoke. I stood without any emotion, because I just associated the plane with the game “general zero hour”. At the beginning of the war it was usually the countryside the government bombed, but as the conflict progressed it would be the bigger cities they would target.

Every day I could hear the noise from the bomber and I could see it on the sky over our rooftop, but I was not afraid, because I always thought that if I died, I died and that was it. But my entire family was scared and thinking back now I do admit that I was scared of being wounded, so that I would have to have a limb or maybe several limbs amputated and as a result of the physical damage be forced to live with the pain and tangible disability and possible social exclusion from society.

After some weeks, my family and I decided to flee to Turkey, and we drove in car to the border, where we waited for 20 days on the pavement together with several hundreds of other refugees, and for each day there would be more and more. But it was calm and ok and after 20 days we crossed the border and entered Turkey and drove to Urfa where some of my mother´s family lives. We    lived in a tent on the street together with 30.000 other refugees from Syria and it was like a camp.    It was organised by the Red Cross and UNICEF, and I would go to school there and also work as a volunteer playing with younger kids. All the refugees were given a card so that they could buy food in the store in the camp, so they did not starve.

When I was 16 years old I went to Istanbul by myself, because my former neighbour from Aleppo was there and because I wanted to get a job and save up some money. I had already learned to speak Turkish in the camp, and so it was not a problem for me to communicate with people at all. I earned my money by ironing shirts and washing the part inside of buses such as seats and windows. The disadvantage was that I could not go to school during this period, the advantage, though, was that I got to save up money for my journey to Denmark.
After 8 months I decided to go to Denmark with my uncle and his two children because I had another uncle who lived there. We first went in a small boat to Mytilini on Lesbos from Ismir : We were perhaps 50 persons in the boat, and actually there was no space for me, and so I threw away my swim ring as it took up space. I remember the sun was rising as we got out on the sea, and most of the others were scared, because water was entering the boat and at one point we actually were sitting in water that reached the middle part of our shin: I tried to pour out water with a shoe, but the rising sun made me dizzy and I just had to sit still until we reached the island. It took 50 minutes to reach the island and we had to climb a steep slope, and I remember that my cousin and I who were the youngest ones just ran, also because I only carried one bag with me.

From the island we took the ferry to Athens, where we stayed for some days. The Greek people were nice to us and the yoghurt was really good, but it was impossible for us to get a hotel room. We then went through the Balkans in bus and in train, and in Croatia our trained stopped for several hours, as somebody pulled the emergency brake. In all the different countries that we passed through I would usually say that my uncle was my father and that my cousins were my siblings, and I did it because it just felt easier not to explain. But when we finally reached Berlin, I told the police that my uncle was my uncle, and I did it because I felt safer there than I had done in other places. I really liked Berlin as it seemed like a really nice city, even though I just stayed there for a couple of hours.

From Berlin we took the train to Copenhagen, where we ended up in Sandholmlejren for one week, and we were then moved to another camp, and later again to at third refugee camp. And from there     I moved to Langeland by myself to a centre for refugee children, where I stayed for 6 months. I then was reunited with my sister who had arrived to Denmark and together with her I moved to a temporary housing in Copenhagen, where I began to go to school and improve my language skills. After another 6 months I got an apartment with a friend in a nice neighbourhood.

Right now I am taking 10. klasse, and I will get my certificate next summer. And next year I hope to be in HTX and hopefully after that I will able to enter the University and get a degree. My parents have now arrived to Denmark after a family reunification that took more than a year to get formalized, and they have their own apartment in another part of Copenhagen.

I am very optimistic about my future. I am applying for a student job in one of the supermarkets, so that I can be financially independent and buy some things for myself. I am now a skilled swimmer and this summer, when we had record high temperatures, I would go and swim in the harbour every day, because I enjoy it so much. I still play chess, also as a chess-volunteer in the housing where I used to live, and now I also play the violin and practice every second week, soon to be every week. My violin teacher is very good and she has played for the queen many times, and I really hope to be skilled at playing myself, even though I know that I have to practice a lot. I like classical music.

I arrived in Denmark with my family in 2016. I came with my parents and 6 siblings and first we went to live as refugees in a small house that was located in a place called Nykøbing Mors. And after having lived there for some months, we moved to Copenhagen to another temporary housing, where we were sharing facilities such as kitchen and shower with a group of other refugees. It was also in this housing that I met Karin, whom I now consider to be my ”Danish aunt”, and she is not only an aunt to me, but to my entire family. Karin first came to visit us and then we went to see her and to have some food in her apartment. This year on my birthday in June, she arranged a girls´ day out for me, my sister and my mother, so we went to have lunch at a restaurant where we had ice cream for dessert, and we also went to buy a dress for me in one of the big shops in the city.

I go to school every day. I go to a ”modtagerklasse” and I leave my house around 7 in the morning, because I get there by foot with my sister, and we do not get home until 3 or 3:30 in the afternoon. The school is not the best school, and the teaching that I am receiving is not really improving my Danish language skills, because we keep learning the same basic words, and it is just the same words over and over again. But they say that I have to continue in that class for another year, because I need to get better at speaking Danish. When I get older and have to choose a career, I would like to be a teacher myself, or perhaps a doctor.

I came to Denmark in 2014. I am from Qamishili in Syria. In Syria, I worked as a chef in restaurants.
Before the war I lived a very nice life. The war came to Qamishli in the beginning of 2014. I am a Christian and ISIS killed all the Christians in Qamishly, so I had to escape. All of my relatives escaped before me. I was the last one to leave. I escaped alone to Turkey. From Turkey I took a boat with 30 people to Greece. They threw all my bags in the water. I spent 35 hours in a very old boat. I wore a lifejacket. There was many people. I felt like I could not breathe. The captain of the boat made a mistake, and took us to Samos instead of Lesbos. We got put in a military prison for 20 days, without anybody talking to us. When we were released I went to Athens, where I met an Asian man who promised to help me get a plane to Denmark. I had to pay $10.000 to get a fake passport and a plane ticket. The guy put my picture in the fake passport. When I got to the passport control in Athens, the authorities looked at my picture and back at me for 10 minutes. The plane was waiting to take off, so they let me pass. I was very nervous.

When I got to Denmark my sister picked me up. She lives in Aarhus. There was no police at the airport in Copenhagen, so no one discovered me. I just left with my sister. After a while I got send to Sandholm and had my fingerprints registered. After that I was sent to Helsingør to the asylum center. Then I was sent to Sønderborg, then Nyborg. Then I got permission to stay and I had to stay at a hotel for 20 days. Then I went to Aarhus. I did not like it in Aarhus. I am a good chef and I got a job in an Arab restaurant, where I was treated very badly. For that reason I went to Copenhagen, where I found a new job as a chef.
I do not like the life much in Denmark. It is very stressful. We work very hard and do not have time for pleasure. In Syria we did not work as hard. We finish every day in the afternoon and had plenty of time to be together with family and friends. Here in Denmark everyone is running around all the time and are stressed. We did not get so much salary in Syria, but food was cheap. For 100 Syrian pounds I could buy many things. Now after the war things are very expensive.
I feel like the Danish people are very closed towards new people. And also as a distance. I feel like some other Muslims judge me because I am Christian. I also feel like we are refugees are being exploited in the workplace. We work too hard for too little. I wish I could go back to Athens because there are many restaurants to work in or maybe in Malmø I do not feel comfortable here. I feel very controlled by the authorities in Denmark.

I came to Denmark in early 2016 with my parents and my sisters and brothers, and first we lived in the countryside in our own house. It was a very nice house, because it was nice and peaceful as I did not have to share my kitchen with anybody else except my family. But then we moved to Copenhagen to another temporary housing with shared facilities and a lot of other refugees around, and it was just very different from what we had been used to.

We then moved to our own apartment. My parents, though, are divorced now and they each have an     apartment; one lives in one part of the city, one lives in another part of the city. And so I live with        my mother, but I am also often with my father. My oldest brother did not come with us to Denmark: He is 21 years old and is therefore considered to be an adult, so it is very difficult for him to be allowed to come to Denmark. I can hear that he is sad, when I speak with him on the phone.

I go to school every day together with my sister. Sometimes after school we go to the youth club, and as it is located near our apartment it is ok. My mother had an internship, but right now she goes to the language school during the week and she returns to our home tired in the afternoon. My father works a lot, so he is also busy. When I get older and have to make a living, I would like to be a hairdresser or a make-up artist. I like cats and dogs.

I came to Denmark in 2014 with my younger brother who just turned 24. In Syria I worked as a hairdresser, and I had a salon of my own since I was 15 years old. Right now I am finishing an education to become a hairdresser by profession, and I have an intership at Sthur. In November 2018 I will become a hairdresser! It only takes me two years because I have training from Syria.

In 2014 I arrived at Frederikshavn. Its where I got my resident permit to stay in Denmark. I went to language school and took 9th grade at VUC. I lived there for two years. When I got a job in Copenhagen, I moved. A lot of people ask me how I got my job. All I can say is, is that I work hard.

At VUC they produced a commercial where I attended, and told about my life, about my dreams. The commercial was at youtube, so I shared it with Venligboernes facebook site. Later I became vice chairman at Venligboerne Frederikshavn. Søren Hedegaard, who is HRH crown princess Marys hairdresser, saw that video too, and he contacted me and said he would help me get an internship. He called my teacher, Bettina Stuhr, and I went to an audition with her.

Since moving to Copenhagen I’ve had lots of work to do. I assist Søren doing both make-up and hair, and last year I worked as a stylist on ‘Vild med dans’. I teach at Stuhr in their academy and take part of a great show where hairdressers from Scandinavia come to learn more about new techniques.

My brother and I live together. He works for Louis Vuitton, and work in the evening at Folketeatret. We left Syria in 2012. We went to Egypt, and then to Libya, and stayed there for 2½ years. There was war there too. My brother was a mechanic and I worked as a hairdresser. In the 2½ years in Libya, we experienced many problems, so we decided to go to EU. We sailed from Libya to a small island in Europe. I met many smugglers that we paid to help us. We had no family, it was just the two of us. Our goal was to get to Scandinavia, and we were lucky to get resident permit when we arrived here. We both fled from the Syrian military, so our resident permit is of political reasons. I hope it will be renewed, I have spent five years building a new life here.

When you are here as a Syrian, its important to think forward, and try to forget what Syria was. I remember the good things, and the good memories, and forget the bad things that happened, like the war.

My family lost everything. Our apartment, my fathers shop. They move from place to place now, but cant join us here, since my brother and I are above 18 years. Family reunification is not possible, and all borders in Syria are closed. We thought we would just go on vacation for two weeks, but we fled. I hope I will get to see them some day. My mother says that shes happy that were doing good, and we’ve created a good life for us here.

There are SO many Danish people who helped us. I would not have been able to get this job without help, and it would take me a long time to name the persons who has helped us. Not just Danish people, we also received help from other Syrians here. Even if they don’t know you, they still help you.

The politicians should ask us about our culture and the experiences we have. Listening is an important skill. What do people who fled here bring, what are their skills and what do they know of? Its not enough to take a look at them and then classify them. We all have something to offer, something that matters to us. We all want to work and study. All my Syrian friends work, but that never reach the media. Some of them even have two jobs. If the news are bad, then you’ll hear about it, never the positive stories.