My family and I once believed in the promise of freedom. That if we could just make it to the United States, we would finally be safe. We believed that after years of fear, of merely existing, we could finally live.
But we quickly learned that freedom is not given, it is fought for.
We left everything behind. Forced out of the only home we had ever known, we searched for safety, not just anywhere, but to reunite with the one person we had been separated from for too long. Our father. We applied for political asylum, not because we wanted to leave, but because we had no other choice. Staying meant risking everything. Leaving meant surviving.
The journey was grueling, crossing borders, evading danger, carrying nothing but the hope that at the end of it all, we would be together again. And finally, we arrived. A whole month later, with only a backpack on each of our backs.
Yet, even here, in the land that calls itself free, we are still watching our backs, fearing that safety is only temporary, that at any moment, it could all be taken away again.
We are more than headlines, more than statistics. We are people. People who have risked everything for the simple right to be. To me, Voices Unseen is not just about telling our own stories; it is about making others listen. It is about educating those who have never had to run, who have never questioned whether they belong, so they can understand the realities we face. Because change does not come from silence. It comes from awareness, from empathy, from the willingness to see beyond one’s own experience.
We may still be fighting for our place in this world, but our voices will not be silenced.
Because we are here.
And we shall be heard.
And we shall be heard.
