everybody has a story

Coming to Australia will always be the thing that changed my life forever. When I was growing up in Tehran, Iran, family from all over the world would visit and tell us how things were culturally limited there. My family is very open and not particularly traditional or religious, so we would talk about these things. We were middle class and had a decent life, but I always had this feeling I could leave and do better, even though there was no war or economic issues at that time. As I got older, I became awakened to Iran’s totalitarian government.

I was very observant as a kid. I could see how school life was different to home life. You couldn’t be openly non-religious – school was strictly Muslim. At school, we didn’t talk about the wine