- I was born in a refugee camp
I experienced life as a refugee firsthand.
My name is Res Gardi.
My family is Kurdish
We are the world's largest group of people
without an independent country.
The Kurdish history is one that's been plagued
with injustice, oppression, and the denial of our rights.
My parents met in Iran as part of a Kurdish human rights
movements when they were teenagers.
They are both refugees.
During this time, all the stage of Kurdish
existence is banned.
You could be killed for raising a Kurdish flag.
You'd be imprisoned for having Kurdish music on,
speaking Kurdish in public.
My parents tell me these stories about the number of times
that they risked death at the hands of the Iranian military,
who would follow them after their meetings.
People would disappear.
People would be imprisoned.
In the middle of the night,
one night, my parents and their two kids
got into the back of cargo trucks
and illegally cross the border between Iran and Pakistan.
And when they arrived in Quetta Pakistan,
they were granted instant asylum and status as refugees.
By the time my family resettled to New Zealand,
it was 10 years later.
Actually, one of the most vivid memories I have
is that day that we got the news.
They said, "you're going to New Zealand,
"it's this big city in Australia."
(laughs)
We arrived in New Zealand in February 1998.
But I turned seven a few months after arriving here.
So for much of my childhood, I was a happy kid.
I learnt English really well.
I participated in netball,
actually, the topic of where I was from didn't come up at school.
But unfortunately, things changed quite dramatically
for me after 911.
"Hey, aren't you from that part of the world
"where Osama bin Laden is from?
"You must be one of them.
"Your dad has Osama Bin Laden."
They'd make bomb sounds when I walked past the playground,
all those differences that were never a problem
before now I feared.
- When she's come in New Zealand, very hard for us.
And she's 13 years old.
I decide I take care her my country.
See the family, see the Kurdish, see what is the life.
And always she watching, she see very difficult.
- It was around this age that I think
I started questioning where I was from
and wanting to know more.
My grandparents, my extended family, my aunties
and uncles and cousins and they were telling me
"don't speak Kurdish out loud,
It's dangerous."
And then I had gotten all these
Kurdish clothes, Kurdish posters, CDs,
when we were crossing the border between Turkey and Iraq,
the Turkish military confiscated all of these things.
He was speaking in Turkish.
I was speaking in English,
and I was just outraged.
I was like, "how can you just take all these things from me?
What am I done wrong?"
And I remember one line that the Turkish officer said
in English and he said, "threat to national security."
I was like, "What's that even mean?
Am I posing a threat to national security?
Like that doesn't even make sense to a 13 year old."
- Hey everyone!
We are going to have full course so
can ya'all get around the table please.
- Many of the youth we're working with are from
refugee displaced backgrounds.
Their parents have escaped war and tragic conflicts
to be here in New Zealand where they're a safe.
We try to bring them all together,
provide them with a platform
where they can voice their concerns,
talk about issues that matter to them,
or just have fun and meet other people
who understand their backgrounds
and where they've come from, now being in New Zealand.
So yeah, it's really important that we will connect.
- When I went to see my careers advisor,
I said that I wanted to go to law school,
and my careers adviser kind of went,
"Mm, okay, tell me about your family."
I said, "well, my dad didn't finish school.
He was basically a freedom fighter all of his life.
My mom didn't finish school.
She was raising her siblings at the age of 10."
Then based on this analysis of my family's
background education in our family,
decided that law school was off limits for me
and told me I should consider more realistic options.
I had been raised with the stories of my parents
standing up to dictators and military.
It's in my DNA to fight the system.
So I was adamant that law school was where I would go,
and no one could tell me that I wasn't smart enough
or good enough to make it.
I went to Harvard Law School for my Master of Laws.
I graduated May 2019.
And crossing that stage to get my diploma.
I promised myself that I would use this degree
to help others who have faced and justice,
people who are voiceless and people who don't
have the opportunities that I have had
and to use it to fight for the good of people.
So Shyvana's team that weigh Asams team that way,
you guys ready?
- Yeah.
We've got this.
(ball bouncing)
We're here today at the Trust Stadium.
We're running an event for refugee youth.
We've got some basketball reps and Shyvana Palvas
from the New Zealand Tall Ferns,
teaching our refugee youth some skills.
Okay, so you'll be a captain of one team,
and then you be captain of one team.
So we run these kind of events on a monthly basis.
Sometimes it's sports, sometimes it's study skills.
Sometimes it's just a picnic.
We just try to get refugee youth together,
get them to bond, build capacity,
leadership skills, and enable them to enjoy opportunities
that otherwise may not be possible
for a lot of these young people.
Now that I've graduated, my next step will be to go over
to the Kurdish region of Iraq.
I'm going as part of an international team of lawyers
who are going to be based in the refugee camps
on the border of Iraq and Turkey.
I'll be based there for a year gathering evidence
so that in the future they can be a prosecution
of ISIS across several jurisdictions.
My mom just wants to treat me like a baby
(all laughing)
- In the beginning I am scared.
Then she explained me.
She when working with the human rights
I'm very proud now.
She's make my dreams come true.
I hope one day
everybody be freedom.
- My mom is fierce.
She is dedicated.
She is my biggest role model.
She didn't get to finish school
and she tells me that from a young age
her dream was to be a lawyer.
So I always felt like for me to graduate from law school
and to pursue human rights law
is not just achieving my own dreams,
but also my mum's,
and I dedicate everything
that I do to her.