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Ahmed Badr’s life was changed forever on July 25th, 2006. A dud missile smashed through his bathroom window, severely damaging his family home.
Ahmed was at his grandmother’s house on his first sleepover. His father told him that their house had been bombed the next day.
A week later, Ahmed and his family moved from their home in Baghdad, Iraq to Aleppo, Syria which was much safer at the time. They spent a year in Aleppo and then moved to the coast of Syria. They spent these 2 years going back and forth from Baghdad to Syria because his parents were Civil engineers on paid leave from Baghdad.
Ahmed’s parents struggled to make a very important choice. Should they stay in Syria, and be safe, but not do well financially - or go to Iraq and be better financially in danger?
Ahmed’s father found out about a U.N. refugee program that took approximately 1% of the people who applied and sent them to either the U.S. or the U.K. Ahmed’s father applied.
The next 6 months were spent in interviews, and one day, Ahmed’s mother got a phone call. They had been accepted and were going to the U.S.
Ahmed and his family flew in to Sioux Falls, South Dakota and got settled in, and soon, Ahmed got into writing about his story. People were interested in his story and Ahmed started to get a lot of attention: which he loved.
Ahmed wanted to have other people like him to have the same feeling. This inspired Ahmed to start Narratio. Narratio is an online platform where youth can publish their poems, pictures, and stories with the world. Narratio helps youth understand that “We are as united by our differences as we are by our similarities,” as Ahmed said.
Soon after Ahmed started Narratio, he was thinking about the tragedy of his house, and thought about how he could better understand it and help others do the same.
Ahmed realized that maybe telling the story from the perspective of the the thing that hurt them most would help all people better understand their struggles and tragedies.
Ahmed empowers refugees from all over the world understand their tragedies. “...when you are doing this type of work, when you are working with refugees, when your working with individuals who have undergone unimaginable things, unimaginable circumstances, you really have to share a part of yourself in order to be successful. I think this is something we can all learn from.”
Ahmed now attends Wesleyan University. He learned to understand his own tragedies, and help others do the same.
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