Four inspirational immigration stories of 2021

• Refugee teen who fled war in a boat competed in Olympics

Yusra Mardini, a young refugee who swam for her life to steer a sinking refugee boat in the open sea, competed in the Olympics in July. She is also the youngest UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador.

The young woman was being trained by her father to become a professional swimmer before fleeing Syria in 2015 at the age of 17 due to the war.

Her years of training two hours a day came in handy when the engine of a crowded boat supplied by smugglers seized. The waves were raging and the boat was sinking despite people tossing overboard anything they could. The boat was designed to hold seven but had been stuffed with 20 people instead. Yusra and her sister Sarah climbed out into the cold water to help keep the boat steady. They swam with brief breaks to rest for three hours in the open sea, as they pulled the boat with rope towards the Greek island of Lesbos. Two other refugees also helped them save 16 refugees.

Six years later, Mardini became one of the 29 athletes on the Refugee Olympic Team, competing in 12 disciplines at the Tokyo Olympics in Japan. Even though Mardini left the games with no medal, her story was widely shared as one of hope and determination.

• A German pastor who saved refugees from deportation 

Some religious institutions on German soil are saving asylum seekers from deportation, offering them shelter for six months and then assisting them in their court cases. Pastor Gottfried Marten’s Trinity Church in Berlin is one of them.

Hundreds of refugees, mostly Afghans and Iranians, who converted to Christianity before leaving their countries and taking refuge in the Lutheran Church, are now staying at the Trinity Church.  

Pastor Marten has learned the Persian language to improve communication while also providing sanctuary to thousands in the past 15 years. He holds mass baptismal ceremonies after testing people’s faith, ensuring they truly desire to become Christians.

The German police can deport them by law, but they don't step on church premises in practice. It means the refugees remain safe within the institutions’ confines until they are prepared to file court petitions for the right to seek asylum in Germany -- mostly on the grounds of religious persecution back home. If officials deny their application, they are to be deported to the first country in which they arrived in Europe.

• Hundreds of Britons apply to host, or become friends with Afghan refugees

An overwhelming number of people in the United Kingdom have volunteered to host or become friends with Afghan refugees following the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in August.

The UK’s largest refugee befriending scheme, HostNation, had to close applications in London in September after receiving more than 50 applications in one day from locals who wanted to connect asylum seekers and refugees, according to a report by the Guardian in September. The organisation used to receive around 10 applications in the previous months. 

“We always felt like there was an awful lot of goodwill in the community, people who wanted to befriend refugees but didn’t really know how,” founder Anneke Elwes told the paper, adding that the charity is still recruiting befrienders in north-east England.

The goodwill was also shown by hundreds of British citizens who volunteered to host the Afghan refugees in August, the month of the Afghan crisis was widely covered by international media. 

In August, 998 people signed up to be hosts with Rooms for Refugees, a Glasgow-based community housing network, according to another report by the Guardian in August. Another 824 people offered up their spare rooms to Afghans via another charity, Refugees at Home, only in two weeks, the report said.

• Ambassador taking care of Afghan refugee girl’s pet bird

When American troops withdrew from Afghanistan and the Taliban took over the country this summer, one heartwarming story stood out among reports of chaos amid the crisis. 

Xavier Chatel, the French ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, shared the story of how a pet bird connected him to an Afghan refugee girl he called “Alia”, who was getting ready to be resettled in France.

Alia managed to bring her pet bird named “Juji” with her until the intermediate stop, the UAE’s Al Dhafra base where the French military processed Afghans before being flown to France, but then encountered a problem. Due to sanitary regulations, she wasn’t allowed to take her bird with her. 

When he heard about the young woman’s determination to save her bird, which was travelling in a cardboard box, amid the chaotic environment which forced many Afghans to leave family members and loved ones behind, Chatel felt he couldn’t leave the bird unattended.

Juji, a myna known for imitating human language, has now added “Bonjour!” to its vocabulary and resettled in its new home, the French ambassador's residence.

For Alia, who later found the ambassador on Twitter, knowing that she can one day see her bird again is the epitome of hope.

"In this evacuation, I lost everything. I lost my home, I lost my home country, I lost my life. But the fact that the bird is alive and so well looked after gives me hope to restore it,” she told the ambassador.