I’m living here with my uncle. It took me one year to go from Syria to Denmark. An agent helped me escape from Syria to Turkey where I had to walk 18 hours in the mountains. After that I took a bus to Istanbul where I stayed for 6 months. I tried to cross to Greece but kept on being caught by the Greek police. After 6 months I entered Greece where I tried to take a plane but the police caught me many times. I then walked to Macedonia and afterwards on foot across Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia, Italy, Switzerland, France, Germany and then finally Denmark.

I’ve been here a year now. I’m happy living here with my uncle’s family. I would like to continue my studies here and study to become a lawyer.

Manal Anabli is 34 years old, and is from Aleppo, Syria.

I came to Denmark in September 2015, and then the suffering starts. I haven’t any choises here. I cannot choose work, studying or doing anything. I go to school to learn Danish to get qualifications. They sent me on internship in a kindergarten where they made me clean. I cannot use your education, and I’m not a second hand person.

I have a problem. I need to learn Danish because I cant talk to anyone. When my children speak, I cant understand them. We need more Danish lessons, twice a week isn’t enough. It should be every day instead of internship. Its useless for me to work with cleaning in a kindergarten. Im a lawyer, I need to use my degree and to do that, I need to learn Danish.

I was in contact with an organization who helps refugees. They told me they could not help me because they only help people who are 18-22 years old. I’m 34. We might as well kill ourselves, because there is no place for us.

We need a chance. A chance to study and a chance to work. We need someone to support us.

I have a very important point: All the time we are called ‘refugees’. Every time someone makes a phonecall about us or talk about us they say ‘ here is a refugee’. Im not a refugee, Im a person. Stop calling me a refugee. Im a woman, a mother, a lawyer, not a refugee.