Name: Ali Madad Alizada

Profile: Hazara refugee from Afghanistan, living in Indonesia.

Advantages: UN-certified, good English skills, experienced teacher and librarian.

Risk: At risk of being tortured and killed by the Taliban if returned home.

Canadian contact: Stephen Watt

Despite being aware of the dangers, Ali Madad taught mathematics and English to over 1,000 students in one of Afghanistan’s most insecure areas for three years. Also, he built and taught free literacy courses for the elderly and the poor people in the winter. Unfortunately, the Taliban started looking for him to capture and kill him, and he fled to Indonesia to save his life.

Despite being detained in Indonesia, he spent his time volunteering for his refugee fellows. His hope now is to find a group of Canadian friends who can bring him to Canada where he can reunite with his family one day and see his daughter going to school again.

Childhood

Ali Madad was born in 1988 in Qarabagh district in Ghazni province in Afghanistan. He was only six months old when his father died. He was then taken care of by his mother and only brother. They started farming on the land of his father.

Due to the civil wars that led insecurity and poverty to their peak, Ali Madad’s brother fled to Iran at the age of 12. Despite the insecurity in Afghanistan, Ali Madad’s family sent him to school to get an education.

Four years later, his brother returned home from Iran. With the money he had brought, they opened a small grocery store in the village. Beside going to school and working on the farm, Ali Madad used to help his brother at the grocery store as well.

At the beginning of the Taliban’s governance, his brother was forced to leave his homeland for the second time. Hence, he first went to Pakistan and then emigrated to Saudi Arabia at the suggestion of a friend. On the other hand, Ali Madad graduated from high school in 2007 and passed the entrance exam for the Seyyed Jamaluddin Teacher’s College in Kabul. He worked part-time for one and a half years in a library called Strategic Research and paid for his education. Finally, he graduated from the Teacher’s Training College after two years.

His Activities

In 2011, he served as a teacher at Temaki’s Male High School for three years. Also in 2014, due to a lack of staff, he taught at Tamaki’s Female High School as well.

As a formal instructor, he taught math and English in both high schools. He had set up a literacy course for elderlies, and after returning from school, he used to teach them for free.

During the school holidays in winter, with the help of some of his friends, he started free courses in science subjects (chemistry, physics, and mathematics). In 2012, he got married, and he was blessed with a daughter named Fatima in 2014.

“For the first time in my life, I felt that my past days of despair were over, but soon my family and I got into the nightmare called the Taliban.”

Threat

According to the Taliban, studying and teaching some subjects, as well as educating women, especially in the Co-education system, are against Islamic Sharia. Since the Taliban came to power, they had carried out horrific actions to intimidate the general public, especially those in charge of education. To stop the flow of education, they set schools on fire, bombed the school where Ali Madad had been teaching and killed the school manager in the most brutal way possible.

“All of these incidents took place in a relatively small area in just one year.”

In 2014, three years after his career as a teacher, the news of his activities reached the Taliban. As a result, after several weeks of investigation and obtaining all his details, they attacked his home.

“Because of this, I had to return my family to my wife's father's hometown, and then on July 2, 2014, I was forced to leave my country with a heart full of pain and sought refuge in Indonesia.”

Life in the Detention Centre

Fearing that he and his family would be tortured and killed, he fled to Indonesia, thinking that he could save his life and the lives of his family members by escaping the Taliban. After arriving in Jakarta, he registered himself with the UNHCR on August 4, 2014. With no right to work or way to support himself in the new country, he went to Manado Immigration Centre to ask for assistance. On March 2, 2015, he was transferred to a detention centre that was overcrowded and badly ventilated. Refugees there faced many challenges like, lack of food, water and proper medical care.

After spending 3 years inside the detention centre, on February 20, 2018, he was finally freed and was transferred to a community house in Tanjung Pinang.

Despite many limitations, Ali Madad never lost hope. Instead, with great enthusiasm, he attended a number of courses under the supervision of the UNHCR and IOM. He also has read psychology and motivational books and shared his experiences with other refugees in order to repel the depressing environment among them.

His Family

On one hand, Ali Madad is worried for his family who is in Afghanistan – especially after the Taliban have taken over the country. Due to the insecurity situation there, his daughter cannot go to school. He says:

“My little girl always talks to me on the phone, crying about the Taliban persecution, as well as the suicide bombings and the bodies she sees and begs me to come back home.”

Also, being without a male head of the family, his wife and daughter are not allowed to go outside of the home. On the other hand, Ali Madad has been deprived of his basic human rights. As a refugee, he cannot work, get proper education, drive and even open a bank account.

His Dreams

“With the help of philanthropists who still believe in love and humanity, I hope to get out of this dilemma as soon as possible.”

Ali Madad’s dream is to support his family and help them get rid of the Taliban. He wishes to reunite with them in a peaceful country. As a father, he looks impatiently forward to the day when his daughter can go back to school again.

There is a way for Ali Madad to live his life in a safe country like Canada where he can work, pursue his dream and reunite with his family one day.

As a UNHCR refugee, he is eligible for Canada’s private sponsorship program. He needs a group of five Canadian friends to support him.

To help support him as a sponsor, please contact Stephen Watt on Facebook.

You can also reach out to Ali Madad directly on Facebook or by email: alimadadgholami@gmail.com - or WhatsApp: +62-831-9124-4405.

Reach out and discover how wonderful it is to privately sponsor a good person to start a new life – with your help – in Canada!

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