Greetings all, picking up where we left off some days ago. I am continuously amazed at the speed with which time disappears. Onwards to the continued story of Mansour:

Through all this, Mansour’s thoughts strayed from realities and kept hidden the truth of life: his family was still missing. Rather, Mansour chose to push it aside in order to be able to live but half a life. However, when evening turned to night and memories came out to play, Mansour though of one thing only: what has happened to my family?

As part of Mansour’s education, he studied at a school in Copenhagen catering specifically to refugees and immigrants, which was where David and I first met him. Returning home from the Far East, we had both taken up teaching, which led us towards a phenomenal group of kids from Rwanda, Iraq, Afghanistan etc., who were all enrolled to learn Danish, and who all shared one thing in common: they had fled horrors at home.

They had come to Denmark in escape from regimes and unspeakable atrocities witnessed; they had come to find peace and someone willing to help them. And like Mansour, most had come alone, traveling great distances and through great peril to make it there.  

While teaching at this establishment, David was moreover commissioned to create a short documentary on integration, aimed at helping young refugees to better understand Danish society in all its complex simplicity.

It was in filming this documentary that we first met Mansour and learned of his tragic past, losing touch with his 5 siblings and parents during their escape from the Taliban regime. It was then that the first seeds of what was to become Refugees United were sown.

To be continued…

David and Christopher