Name: Hadi Alizada

Profile: Hazara refugee from Afghanistan, living in Indonesia.

Advantages: UN-certified, excellent English skills, volunteer English teacher and interpreter, experienced barber, FULLY FUNDED.

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

Canadian contact: Stephen Watt

Hadi Alizada, a Hazara refugee from Afghanistan, has faced persecution and violence due to his ethnicity. His father and brother were brutally murdered by the Taliban, leaving him and his family in constant danger.

Hadi fled to Indonesia and registered with the UNHCR, where he became a volunteer English teacher and barber while living in detention. Now, he hopes to resettle in a safe country where he can live with freedom and reunite with his family. He is Fully Funded which means that he only needs five Canadian friends who can bring him to Canada.

Background

Hadi was born on January 01, 1994, in the Malistan district of the Ghazni province in Afghanistan.

The Hazara people of the region have long been targets of persecution and massacres because of their culture, religion, and love for education. Hadi’s father Hussain Ali, had farming land in his village. Hadi was only 3 years old when his father was threatened by a Pashtun man to leave the land or he would be killed.

Due to the threats, his father Hussain Ali, moved his family to Quetta, Pakistan where he began working as a constructor to support the family. Later on, he opened a clothes-selling shop with his business partner Dawood.  

The Incident

In Quetta, Hadi used to study at Pameer High School and learn the English language from an English learning centre. Besides his studies, he used to work at a barber shop to help his father support the family.

Unfortunately, the number of target killings and bomb attacks on the Hazaras in Quetta increased. Hadi and his family were no longer safe there. In the year 2014, Hadi’s father, mother, and elder brother returned to Afghanistan to make their National Identity Cards. Hadi’s mother went to her brother’s home in a village of the Jaghori, while his father and brother went to their home village where they both spent the night at their relative’s home.

The next day, when they both went to see their farming land, the Pashtun man asked them the reason for their return. Hadi’s father said that he had returned to take his land back because Pakistan was no longer safe for Hazaras.

After a few days, one night, some members of the Taliban came to their village and took Hadi’s father and elder brother with them. Later on, that same night, the villagers found the dead bodies of Hadi’s father and elder brother. From the pocket of Hadi’s father, a letter was found in which the Taliban had stated that whoever from Hadi’s family came again to take the land would be killed like his father and elder brother.

Seeking Peace

Learning about her husband and elder son being murdered, Hadi’s mother escaped to Pakistan.

“When I saw my mother had returned alone, I asked her the reason and she told me everything with tears in her eyes.”

Pakistan was not safe for Hadi nor he could return to Afghanistan. His mother sold her jewelry and took the business share of her husband to arrange for a people smuggler and send her son Hadi to a safe country.

His Journey

On August 28, 2014, Hadi traveled to Karachi by car. On August 29, 2014, he flew to Thailand where he had transit for aboutd 14 hours. From there, he went to Malaysia by plane and then on to Indonesia by boat on September 02, 2014.

Detention Centre

After arriving in Jakarta, Hadi registered himself with the UNHCR on September 08, 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 February 21, 2015, he was transferred to a detention centre in Manado.

While living inside the detention centre, Hadi kept himself busy being a volunteer barber and English teacher. After about 3 years, he received his freedom and was transferred to a community house in Tanjung Pinang. Since then, he has been living there and volunteering as an English teacher and a barber.

The Way

Hadi hopes to resettle in a safe country where he can live with freedom and reunite with his mother and sister one day. He says:

“I am very worried for my mother and sister who are left in Pakistan where they do not have legal status to stay in the country.”

There is a way for him to get resettled in Canada and reunite with his family one day.

Since Hadi is officially certified as a refugee by the UNHCR – unlike the vast majority of the world’s refugees – he qualifies for Canada’s private sponsorship program. Another good thing about him is that he is FULLY FUNDED.

If you would like to sponsor him – or if you’re just interested in helping to bring him here – please contact his friend Stephen Watt on Facebook.

You can reach out to Hadi directly on Facebook – or through WhatsApp: +62 81276392391.

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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