Life is a journey, as the saying goes, and its never been more true than for Akram Azimi.
Akram, 25, is the 2013 Young Australian of the Year.
His journey began in Kabul, Afghanistan, and has taken him across the world as a refugee, to grow up in Perth and now to visit Narrabri.
Akram dropped in to talk to Narrabri High School students on Tuesday.
He is being driven around the region by Member for Parkes, Mark Coulton, mentoring indigenous students, and addressing schools and Rotary clubs.
Mark and Akram’s paths originally crossed because Mark is a patron of Polio Australia and Akram is a deeply appreciative beneficiary of the initiatives of Australian campaigners against the disease.
“I was fortunate enough to be given polio vaccine as a child in Afghanistan,” Akram told The Courier.
“Because of that I am able to walk today.”
The act of kindness by an Australian funded polio vaccine campaign in Kabul has become one of the themes of Akram’s message to his fellow Australians.
An act of kindness or generosity can have profound effects.
“Who knows where the ripples will end?” he said.
“Indeed, I am alive and healthy today because Australian tax payers contributed funds to vaccinate children, like me, in war-torn Afghanistan.”
Akram arrived in Australia as an Afghan refugee, aged 11, in 1999, with his mother and brother.
“I was born in Kabul in the middle of the civil war and we remained there for a few years until the fighting got too bad.
“We had street fighting going outside where we used to live. We literally grabbed whatever we could and stuffed it in our pockets and with the clothes on our back we fled.
“We were very lucky because we got an asylum to Australia, via Peshawar, and we flew here in 1999.
“We stepped into another world, a world that’s full of compassion and indeed full of prosperity too.”
The family settled in Perth.
“I remember feeling very different to those around me,” said Akram.
“We were struggling so badly at one stage that we couldn’t afford new shoes. I had an old pair of shoes and the front of one had actually split open so a couple of my toes were poking out.
“And I remember going to school and all the other kids saw my shoe and they laughed and I felt so incredibly low, so incredibly different.”
Akram’s determination and talents took him on a new journey.
He was announced as winner of the Young Australian of the Year title in January.
He was chosen as an inspiration for his work mentoring people with disability and in indigenous communities.
“The Young Australian of the Year award says something wonderful about our nation, that someone who looks like me can be held up as a role model to all other Australians.”
When Akram arrived in Australia he could barely speak a word of English.
He went on to become head boy at Warwick Senior High School in Perth, topping the tertiary entrance exam.
Today, he is studying for a triple degree in law, science and anthropology at the University of Western Australia. He plans to graduate in 2014.
Akram’s family has thrived since arriving in Australia and they have been treated with warmth and generosity, he says.
When he is not studying for his triple degree, he oversees ‘I am the Other’, a student-run initiative raising awareness about Indigenous issues in universities, works with ‘True Blue Dreaming’ which helps disadvantaged remote Indigenous communities, and mentors a Special Olympics athlete.