I am Karim. I fled Afghanistan and came to Van, Türkiye in 2010. One year after my arrival, we survived a huge earthquake in Van. My wife was greatly injured. Then they sent us to Aksaray.

I am of Hazara. In Afghanistan, people from Hazaras are persecuted and tortured. Women are raped. So we fled there and sought refuge in Türkiye.

We drove in the dark of night with our headlights off on a cliff-side road that the smugglers had dug themselves. We traveled for eighteen hours, in constant fear. We went through hell and back during that ride.

The biggest contribution of the project is that now our children are in school. We rented a house with a little garden. The landlord entrusted me with the maintenance of the garden, which gave me great joy. Because this was our family trade back in Afghanistan.  We take care of the trees and the garden. There is a small field where we harvest onions, sugarcane, coriander other greens native to Türkiye. We earn our living from this garden.

We met the Hayata Gülümse Association through our Afghan friends. Both I and my wife learned Turkish in this Association. We cannot wait to attend reading classes which will restart shortly. Then, we want to attend vocational courses, inshallah. I want to learn how to do mushroom farming, for instance.The Association encouraged me to start a YouTube channel named “Kerim Çiftçi” (Kerim the Farmer). The channel features videos on gardening and farming. I record videos of everything I plant and harvest. I also cook and upload food videos on the channel.