DETERMINATION and a passion for food has given Pakistani refugee Ghulam Abbas Noor Ali a new life in Newcastle.
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At 16, Ghulam fled his home in Quetta, Pakistan, and put his fate in the hands of people smugglers in his search of a safer existence.
Alone, with only a small backpack and a moderate understanding of English, Ghulam was fleeing from kidnappers, gunshots, bomb blasts, target killings and terrorist attacks.
“Life was like hell,” Ghulam said.
Ghulam’s parents paid about USD $10,000 to the people smugglers to send their son to a safe country.
From Pakistan’s Karachi International Airport, the smugglers provided Ghulam with a fake passport and a visa for Thailand. From close to the Malaysian border, Ghulam was driven about nine hours from Thailand, then “squeezed” into the back of a car packed with around 12 other refugees.
“It was very hard to breathe,” he recalled.
Ghulam left Malaysia, travelling to Indonesia on a small speed boat, where he spent a month before stepping aboard a boat to Australia.
“Honestly, I hated myself at the time,” he said. “I was sitting on the boat and, yeah, not knowing what was going to happen next.”
After nine days, Australian immigration authorities collected Ghulam’s boat and he was initially processed on Christmas Island. Three days after that, he underwent further “processing”, including medical examinations, in a detention centre at Leonora, Western Australia, roughly three hours’ drive from Perth.
Three months later, Ghulam and two other male refugees were sent to Maitland to live with a carer.
Ghulam started attending Maitland Grossman High School but spent much of his spare time in Newcastle.
Two years later he finished school, moved to the coast and became a Novocastrian.
Ghulam found a love for food in Quetta, despite it being a city plagued by fear and danger.
“When I was a young kid I was just interested in cooking with my mum, where she makes everything from scratch,” he said. “I used to just watch her and admire whatever she was doing. She was just amazing … it was how I learned.”
Ghulam, loves “everything” about Australia and is working as an apprentice chef at the Three Monkeys Cafe in Darby Street.
“The freedom I have here ... I can do whatever I want,” he said. “People are nice towards me. Like, I get good support from work, friends.”
Three Monkeys owner Anthony Strachan said Ghulam had the makings of a great chef.
“After giving him a trial and having a chat to him it became more apparent that he loved food,” Mr Strachan said.
“He told a number of stories about he and his friends taking food in the hills of Afghanistan and cooking great meals.”
“He seemed passionate about starting work … and his determination to make a life in Australia made him seem the ideal candidate.”
Ghulam, now waiting to officially call Australia his new home, is looking forward to a brighter future.
“When I get citizenship hopefully by next year, I’ll be a fully qualified chef as well and I guess everything’s just going to work out perfectly.”
Ghulam is still in contact with his family back home in Pakistan, and speaks with them “a few times a week”.
“It’s all on me now,” he said. “So I’ve applied for my full citizenship, and I haven’t heard anything yet ... when I become a citizen I can apply for them to come here.
“Also, after qualifying (as a chef), my goals for the future would be working my way up to having my own cafe or restaurant.”