My parents, my family, my people.
SIREN WAILS
To know that there is a Syrian who did something good after the war...
I hope that I will be one of them, to make my people proud of me...
..after all that's happened.
I got this conditional acceptance from the university.
'They told me, "You are welcome, but, first of all,
' "you should prove that you can speak English."
'
INDISTINCT CHATTER
Yeah, so they give you a table, or they give you either a graph or...
You have to describe it and make a comparison.
'I arrived to the class and I introduced myself'
and told them where I was from.
They asked me how it's going in Syria in general.
I told her, like, people are dying there.
'I didn't want anyone to be sorry,
'but, I mean, people have this awareness'
about what is going and how people are dying in Syria.
Are you applying for university?
Yes, I got an acceptance at the university,
at the University of Westminster.
OK.
I will start in September after I get the Ielts.
I'm not practised well.
You know, it's been now, for two years, I haven't, like,
touched any exam or any papers.
Is it six, the band you should get?
Yeah, I mean, overall, 6.5.
Tell me, "It's easy, you will get it."
It's easy!
LAUGHTER
What about you?
It's easy.
'If I pass the exam, I will start being a student again
'and I will get the loan and start to have my own place.
'All my future depends upon this exam now.'
PHONE TEST: OK, where do you see yourself in this position
in the future?
'It's not important just for me,
'it's important for my family and my friends.
'All my people who are supporting me.'
The room where I am living now, I can't stay for more.
I can't stay at this room any more cos the guy who's
responsible about it, giving me the room,
he said, "There is someone else and I will give him the room
"and I can't give the room to you, you need to look for another room."
I went to the council and I asked them,
how can I find a room, people accept the housing benefit?
They suggested some websites, so I was checking these websites,
SpareRoom and Gumtree, and also I went to some agency.
OK, so this is basically the property.
It's nine bedrooms.
There's lots of facilities for the amount of tenants that are here.
This is the cheaper room, this is the £650 room.
This is...
Erm...
It's a...it's a small double bedroom.
It's a four-foot double bed.
It's OK.
So you've come from Syria?
So do you have brothers and sisters there?
Yeah, well, my brother is with my parents now.
Yep.
And my sister, she is married and she's living in Qatar.
Oh, OK.
Yeah.
It must be, it must be...
terribly hard on the family, mustn't it?
It must be.
Yeah.
My house got targeted by the air force, like, airstrikes.
That's why I left.
I feel lucky to have been born in England, you know?
Yeah.
You know, it is sort of...
It's a bit of a postcode lottery, isn't it?
Yeah, yes.
So, the first property, the first room,
the cheaper one at £650 a week, since you're at university,
we'd need a university enrolment letter.
OK.
Yeah.
We'll probably need to get someone to verify your ID
and if you've got a bank account or any utility letters
where you're living now, so that we can just verify exactly who you are.
I have no money here.
I need...
To check in the house, I will need like, 1,000 or more than 1,000.
If I get a student loan,
I don't have to ask for housing benefit any more.
Being a student, it will be much easier.
It won't be like now, like, to be a refugee.
'I keep watching the news, what's going on in my city,
'cos every day there is an airstrike targeting a place in my city.
'I have to expect the worst.
'I still have a lot of friends in Syria, in my city.'
'Once the war finishes, I will go back to Syria, because I know that'
the country need their own citizens to build it.
A lot of people, they still like Europe,
but they prefer to go back to Syria if it's safe.
BROADCASTER: 'It's a big and nervy day for hundreds of thousands of
'people waiting to hear what their A-level results will be,
'and to see what that means
'for whether they can get a university place
'and, if so, what sort of place they can get.'
There you go.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
IN OWN LANGUAGE:
'Please mind the gap between the train and the platform.
'Change for the District Line.'
'I got my result'
and it was, like, less than the band I wanted.
I knew that studying again for the Ielts,
it would be really difficult
and I'm not sure if I will get the band in the next try.
But I
didn't want to, like, give up.
I went to the university
and I asked to talk to the admission office.
'I said, "I want to talk to someone
' "who can make a decision for my acceptance."
'
He said, "OK, give me your number
"and I will let your tutor talk to you."
I was feeling like I won't get it, cos the university has the rule.
'Finally, he said,
' "I can now approve your place at university."
'
OK.
I asked him, "So I've got it for this year?"
And he said, "Yes, in September, you can start."
During the last year, I've done a lot of big things.
Crossing Europe, passing to the UK, getting accepted by the university.
'All of it, it's a sign, like, I can, I still have more to give.'
If I believe in what I want and what I need, I will get it.
It won't be impossible.