Name: Muhammad Hussain

Profile: Hazara refugee from Pakistan, living in Indonesia.

Advantages: UN-certified, excellent English skills, educated, computer instructor, peer counselor, English teacher (for classes up to grade 12^th), interpreter, and has bachelor’s degree.

Risk: At risk of being tortured and killed by extremists and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi if returned home.

Canadian contact: Stephen Watt

Needed: Fundings to cover the cost of the first year in Canada and a group of 5 Canadian friends to sponsor him.

Hussain fled to Indonesia in 2016 to seek safety. Since then, he has been living without his basic human rights. He is an education lover and dreams to become a data scientist in the future.

His hope now is to find a group of Canadian friends who can help him start a new life in Canada.

“Being a refugee is not a problem. The problem is when we are being genocided because of our ethnicity and religious beliefs.”

History of Hazaras in Pakistan

The Hazara people have been living in Pakistan since before the independence (1947). They served in the British Raj in the 1940s. Just like many Hazaras, Hussain’s grandfather in 1960s migrated from Afghanistan due to the Hazara Genocide in Afghanistan.

Hazaras are an ethnic group and religious minority in Pakistan. They belong to Shia (Shiite) sect in Islam and are ethnically Hazara. Most Hazaras live in the outskirts of Quetta, i.e. Mariabad and Hazara Town. Hazara is peaceful, motivated for education, clean and hardworking people.

Current Situation in Pakistan

Both Mariabad and Hazara Town are surrounded by checkpoints. These two areas look like huge detention centres. Hazara people have to check in and check out in order to go bazaar or out of their areas.

Just like Afghanistan, Hazaras in Pakistan have always been religiously and ethnically persecuted and massacred since the 1990s. No level of the Hazara community has been safe from these attacks. From doctors to shopkeepers and students. Every walk of life has been affected. No one from Hazara knows if they would come back home or not, once they go outside of their area.

Hussain always wanted to complete his education and do something for other people because for Hazaras living in Pakistan, education is the only way forward.

Leave or Die

Hazara genocide and target killings have never stopped. 600 people were killed in just 2 targeted bomb blasts in less than a month's duration. The shockwave was strong enough that it shook homes miles from the blast.

“Every day our people were being killed.”

It was not possible for Hussain to continue living peacefully in Pakistan, so he had to leave the country and seek a safe place.

Journey to Indonesia

In 2016, Hussain left his country and escaped to Indonesia. He claimed asylum and got refugee status in 2017. With no right to work or way to support himself, he spent 5 months under the sun and heavy rain in front of the Batam Detention Centre in 2016. Later on, he was sent to the IDC (immigration detention center) in Tanjung Pinang where he spent 13 months without committing any crime. Hussain was released from the Detention Center in 2018 and since then, he has been living at a community housing in Tanjung Pinang. He says:

“It is going to be almost 7 years that I have been living a life of uncertainty, I neither can go back to my country nor continue living here because I do not have the right to work, drive, get proper education and even open a bank account.”

Hope is Still Alive

Hussain has hopes that someday he will fulfill his dream of becoming a Data Scientist. His love and passion for the computer are unmatchable. He has been taking online computer courses to improve his computer skills and do something in this age of the digital era.

He calls himself the educator and motivator of education and believes that everyone must have the right to get an education.

An Opportunity

Since M. Hussain 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. He needs a group of 5 Canadian friends to sponsor him and funds needed for the sponsorship.

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 M. Hussain directly on Facebook – or by email: m.hussynn@gmail.com – or through WhatsApp: +62 831-8352-3403.

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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