"In exile, I live my past, present and future simultaneously. My past pulls me back with all its might and wants me to stay its prisoner – which I don’t mind because it gives me a warm feeling even though it’s fake. I live every moment of my strange present with great fear. The fear I might have to spend my life away from my beloved home. I live my unknown future in which sometimes hope wins, and sometimes desperation announces its victory.

I wish I could say it easily ... yes, I’m strong ... I will struggle to build a new life, because you either get busy living or get busy dying ... I always remember how, when I was on the death boat (this is how people call it), my mother kept me busy to stay alive by making me empty the boat from water... Here I am now ... trying to empty my soul from yearning ... trying to be strong ... hoping to live ... work ... succeed ... and love."

Hend Alrawi is from from Damascus, Syria. She is an English teacher and has been living in Berlin since 2015. At the time the portrait was taken she was 37 years old. She worked for the Cisco Networking Academy for six months and is now working for Sozialhelden e.V. and their project DialogBereiter. Collecting the experiences of 2015 in a practical handbook on refugee issues, the project’s goal is to help intensify dialogue and benefit from experiences both good and bad. Hend conducts interviews with refugees throughout Germany.