Away from the parents

Living in a shelter without the parents is not easy. Hafiz, a 16-year-old boy from Afghanistan, shares his story with us. It has been two years he lives in Indonesia as a refugee since he fled from his home. It has also been two years since the last time he saw his family. Now, along with the other under-aged refugees, they are living in a shelter, a thousand miles away from their family. “Indonesian people are nice, but living in another country as a refugee, away from my parents is hard. I miss my family!” says Hafiz.

Language is one of many challenges for refugees to adjust themselves in a country. Hafiz shares that when he arrived here, he couldn’t speak English and Indonesian language. Being at Roshan Learning Center, helps him to overcome that challenge. He believes that learning Indonesian and English will improve his capacity. He also wants other refugees, especially the ones who just arrived here, to be strong and never give up on their dreams. “Sometimes I feel sad, but it’s okay because we have to be strong. I realize that everyone has their own problem, but we should never give up. We have to do our best. While we’re here we have a lot of time to learn about life, about ourselves, to improve ourselves, and to live without our parents,” says Hafiz.

Hafiz dreams to be an entrepreneur, and his passion also includes photography. “It’s very hard to understand the refugee people, but with photography, you can tell a story about that,” he said.

The photo above is taken by him, and it's portraying his friends in the shelter. He describes the photo as one of the activity they usually do, which is the digital world. Sometimes life as a refugee is boring because they don’t have much to do. Hafiz said that Roshan Learning Center is important for him because he can learn and do something there, but when he is at the shelter, the internet is what he spends his time on. It helps him to connect with the world, especially with his family.