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l’Ebrima

“ In the future, I would like to be a professional football player. This is what my dream is. ”
One day, a passant saw me in that situation and provided me some help to go to the police. Fortunately, they helped me and took me to a center. Right now, I am living in the center. I am going to school and also playing football here.
My name is l’Ebrima, I am 17 years old and I come from the Gambia. Life in the Gambia was very nice. I lived with my family there, I had many friends and, therefore, it was very good for me to be there. I was going to school every day. I just stopped attending classes because many of my friends were playing football, so I left school to play football and doing some business to help the family. My favorite moment in life was before I came here. It was the day I played football before coming here. That was the best moment.
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Ali

“ I dream for a peaceful world. I don't want to see any more wars, I want to see a united world and where everyone is holding hands with each other. ”
I was working on whatever I could to survive. So that was a big challenge. I would say I didn't face much trouble, but other people do
My name is Ali. I’m from Pakistan, but I spent a lot of my life outside, in Saudi Arabia. I was born in 1991 and we first moved to Saudi Arabia when I was 6 months old. We changed cities every couple of years. My dad was trying to do business there, but his business failed. Because of that, he didn’t have another option left, so he sent us back to Pakistan. To me, living in Pakistan was a good experience. I was really happy because I had a lot of cousins there, a huge family, so I was having a really nice time. My dad got sick and came back from Saudi Arabia. He was there for some months and we didn’t have any source of income. We are farmers, but it was not enough for the whole family
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Baba

“ I love everything about Barcelona. I like the beach, the park, I enjoy it. And I love the people in Barcelona, they are very handsome. ”
I will try because my dream is to be a boxer. Boxing is our life, our history. My grandfather was a boxer and my father was a boxer.
My name is Baba and I come from Ghana. Back in Ghana, I was training boxing. I used to do that because that is what my father was, so he trained me to be a boxer. I didn’t use to go to school there, all my dedication was to step up and be a boxer. I left my country in 2018. I lived all my life there, but then my father passed away and it was a really difficult moment for me. I couldn’t stay in Ghana anymore, so one of my friends was planning to go to Algeria and said that if I wanted I could follow him. So I went to Algeria and started working there. I stayed there for 9 months. Then we came to Barcelona.
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Leidy

“ My dream is to finish my studies at university and then afterwards, dedicate myself to my work. ”
I am thankful to OCC who gave me the opportunity to work for their organization. I work as a Spanish teacher for minors and foreigners, and an administrative assistant.
My name is Leidy and I am twenty-three years old. I am from El Salvador and was born in 1996. In El Salvador, I was studying at university for half a cycle of the first year of university. I was studying languages. I participated in a local channel in my city where I volunteered to edit local news. I also participated with other young people in a youth music program where we broadcasted live shows about important topics and interviewed the public. I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Administrative Assistance and I did my internship in the town hall of my city where I lived. I also helped with the accounting of the business that my parents had. I left my country when I was 19 years old. When I arrived in Barcelona, I started working at a clothing
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Sara

“ Now I look to my future ”
I just longed to be a successful person, to be out of trouble, and help others as much as I can
The war has been going on in Afghanistan, my native country, for about 40 years. Since I opened my eyes to the world, I was more familiar with the sound of a bomb and the world outside than the words of my own mother and father. My childhood was always spent indoors because there was no security outside. I never understood or experienced how it feels to run and play in the park, which is something all children should experience when young. We didn’t sleep well at night due to the sounds of bombs and guns. Our hearts shook with every bomb that dropped and we decided to take refuge in the basement of our house for hours with candlelight. My childhood memories are filled with nothing but war and migration. The only thing I can recall that I liked
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Joanna

“ As you can see it is never enough. You have to change... at least for me. ”
Everything else you manage to do and overcome but the paperwork was hard. I used to think “I am working, why don't I have the right to work?”. It was strange.
What I miss the most about my country is my family. In wintertime, Christmas has never been the same. I traveled, I have been through Spain having Christmas with my friends and new years’ eve, but it is never the same… that coziness and the family. You get used to having it without your family, I suppose, but I do miss it a lot. Back in Romania, I had a normal family. I have one smaller brother, 3 years younger than me. We lived in one small and quiet city. Life there was pretty normal I would say, but drow. I never traveled too much so I couldn’t actually compare with anything but only what I could see on the television and American movies. So when I was 19 and I finished my studies, it came the moment for me
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Ahid

“ I feel more like home here, even more than in my home country. Finally, I am enjoying the opportunity of being myself. ”
I am working hard to finish my studies and then have a job, I will either succeed or succeed here because there are no other options.
Well, I am Ahid, I was born in a small village in Swaida, Syria. I remember myself as a good student with a lot of funny stories from my childhood, snowball battles with all the village, me and my uncles dancing the crazy Syrian Dabke, school trips, and much more. I liked technology, and I was one of the first in my village to get a computer, then I found myself disassembling and reassembling it again and again (luckily, it managed somehow to stay alive until now). By the age of 15, I was the computer technical guy of the village and then the same story occurred with my first Toshiba laptop. I also liked traveling and interacting with other cultures, and I still remember that noisy sound while I was connecting to that lazy slow internet in order to
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Micaele

“ I didn't expect to live here for more than a year, and now I have been here for two... I adapted and I am adapting. ”
I say my process of deciding to come to Spain was craziness. I decided and organized everything in 3 months.
Life in Brazil was very overwhelming. I worked for 4 years in a company as a receptionist. I worked 12 hours every day so it was very complicated. It reached a point where I thought that 4 years in that life was enough. I needed to change, to go to a new place. I needed to have a new experience. I say my process of deciding to come to Spain was craziness. I decided and organized everything in 3 months. I resigned from my old job, then I started searching for a way to come. I found the au pair program, which I found out to be the easiest and cheapest way to come here. And then I just thought yeah, I am leaving! Goodbye! It was a quick process, a bit crazy. I couldn’t plan everything very well, and
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Edith

“ I came to Europe because of love. ”
I grew up in a polygamous family, with 6 siblings. I am the first-born, so I grew up being responsible for the rest of my siblings. I grew up in Western Kenya in a village where the main activity is farming. My parents are separated but we lived on a farm with my mom and my paternal grandmother, who was a teacher. After she retired, she continued with her farming and we helped her. Sometimes we went to help my grandfather who is a medical doctor in his clinic. I left Kenya last year. I was 30 years old. In Kenya, I worked as a journalist for a few months because I studied Linguistics, Media, and Communication. But I got tired of journalism, so I moved into the hospitality industry and worked in hotels. I loved almost everything about my
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Zaquiel

“ I guess that what I most enjoyed about Barcelona when I arrived was the good vibes of the city. All the people were always partying, going out… It is a happy city and the people are very relaxed. ”
I also have one dream of my life. I would like to transcend. I mean, I want to do something to help millions of people - just like Steve Jobs, that helped people to connect with each other through their cell phones or Zuckerberg created social media to connect people.
My name is Zaquiel, I am 24 years old, and I have been living in Barcelona for one and a half years now. I am passionate about many things as such technology, electronics, modeling, and news. I would like to progress in this country, I guess it is easier to advance in life here than in Latin America. You know, normally, people have good memories of their country. I don’t have good memories of my country because I didn’t live the best of Venezuela. I have only 24 years and all I basically have known is the same dictatorship that we can see right now. Maybe some birthdays and friends I had there are good memories. However, many of them have already left and are living in Latin America or around the world. So it may sound like a lie,
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