Najmeh's Essay
In November 2020, during the long months of lockdown we invited all the Samos community to join in a Essay Writing Competition. The topic of the 2 pages essay was an open question:
What do you want the world to know about refugees?
Participants could answer this question with complete freedom: they could talk about the conditions in the camp, their perspective on the situation, their daily routine, important stories they wanted to share, their wishes and hopes for the future.
We received 11 entries, all of them were praiseworthy and valuable. They have been evaluated by our language teachers based on creativity of content, vocabulary usage, orthography and argumentative structure.
Here below is the essay wrote by Najmeh, winner of the vocabulary and spelling award. To accompany it, we asked Najmeh to give us more detailed insights on the living conditions of women in Samos camp.
We invite everyone to take the time and read her testimony with care.
Do you understand that we are also human just like you?
The Turkish government has forcefully driven us out of the cities and moved to the border.We are forced to take refuge at your borders in order to save our lives.
Why are you afraid of us? You don’t need to fear us, after all we are the most vulnerable, only lookin for a safe haven.
I’m a human, I have big dreams. I want to be a human with a sublime personality and a creator of change in the world, and creating peace for those around me and the people of the world. Because no one helped to progress. And I want to help others to progress and relax.
I myself studied civil engineering and worked in my country. And I did not humiliate and I did not accept contempt.
Not everyone is the same. Maybe some people tell lies about their lives, but what is the guilt of people like me?
I’m here for progress. I’m here for a future, for great success.
We are humans and we have feelings like you! We like you, and it breaks our hearts.
And a short life with a broken heart is not beautiful. So be kind.
We are one…
My name is Najmeh. I was born in Iran but I’m originally from Afghanistan.
I’m 25 years old and I studied civil engineering in Iran.
I arrived in Samos in October 2019. After 3 months, I left Samos illegally, and went to Athens. But the police arrested me and returned me back to Samos.
I spent 2 months in prison. They were terrible days!
At the moment I’m in Samos, in the camp. Unfortunately the manager has an awful behaviour towards me and also towards the other women.
She always insults us! She never listens to us and our problems are not important for her.
One time I was ill and trying to speak about the container, which has holes and the rain comes inside - but she told me ‘Go to hell!’.
Also, she has the same behaviour with all the women in the camp.
She told us ‘If you have any problem in your container, you can go out and live in the Jungle!’, but I’m 25 years old and a single woman, and in the Jungle there are a lot of young men that are drinking, and it’s so dangerous for a woman, and we wouldn’t be safe at all!
We talked to the manager but she didn’t listen to us, she just told us ‘I will throw you out and bring another family in!’.
I was born and grew up in Iran, but my nationality is from Afghanistan. I worked in Iran but I never had the sense that it was my country, because we were always discriminated between Iranians and Afghani people.
When I immigrated to Greece, I perceived it even worse! Because here they don’t have any respect for you. Even if you are an engineer or any other social position, they recognise you just as a refugee.
I’m 25 years old and originally from Afghanistan. I have a bachelor certificate of university as a civil engineer, with work experience in Iran as a well-being supervisor. I also have two certificates in sports field. But here they have had, and still have an awful behaviour towards us. That’s how I lose my motivation about the future, when we are trying to talk to them but they don’t treat us with respect and tell us ‘You are a refugee, just be silent and do anything that we tell you!’ and ‘Because you are a refugee and you are not a manager!’.
I live in Samos camp and the manager here has an awful behaviour and doesn’t let us do anything or speak of our problems.