”I spent most of my twenties traveling the world by myself. I would always avoid winter and chase the sun. Just as I avoided my depression, I avoided the discomfort of winter and the cold. While traveling, I certainly had beautiful moments, but deep down, I was miserable. At the beginning of this year, I moved back to Amsterdam. This time I decided to stay. I’m no longer running away from my pain. For the first time in my life, I’m in therapy. There are tough days, but I’m no longer ashamed of it. Like yesterday, I wasn’t feeling too well, but I still went to visit my friends. A few years ago ..read more

“Although my grades were much higher than my older brothers, he was the one who got to go to university. Back in the sixties, girls often got married at a young age, so it was seen as a waste of money to send girls to university. I wanted to study psychology, but my father wouldn’t let me. I ended becoming a social worker. I thought that was a beautiful profession, but my ambition to study did not disappear. For five years, I worked at the child protection services. My supervisor at work was a female psychologist. I learned a lot from her. She inspired me to quit my job and study psychology. M ..read more

“I was at my aunt’s house when we received a phone call that my dad had passed away. I was living in Suriname with my mother at the time. My dad lived here. Despite the distance, he tried to visit me as much as possible. He would always bring expensive clothing from The Netherlands, which made me the coolest kid in my street. The last time I saw my father, I was nine years old. During his last visit, he took me to all these different places and told me a lot about his life. It was as if he knew that it would be the last time we would see each other. My father got buried in The Netherlands. I w ..read more

“Right before departure, I was separated from my family and taken off the train at Amsterdam Central Station. They took me to a children’s home. I was only two years old, so I don’t have a lot of memories. I do remember that every time someone rang the door, I had to hide in the basement. When the war ended, I went from one foster family to another. I have lived in over 27 different foster homes. It was not a secure upbringing. When I nine, I discovered ballet. A few years later, I got accepted into a dance company. I’ve been told that dancing is for prostitutes, but I never cared. I always sa ..read more

“She was one of the baristas at the café I was managing. At work, we got along really well but at the time, I was still in a relationship with a man, and I had no idea that I could be attracted to women. After a year, I got transferred to a different branch of the company. A few months later, at a company party, we ran into each other again. My relationship had just ended. That evening we had quite a few drinks, we got to talk, and there was this strong chemistry between us. That night, I went home with her, and from that moment on, we are together. In the beginning, I thought it was just a ph ..read more

“This is my first day in Amsterdam ever. Mom has already been here and today she took me with her. The buildings here are so big and there are so many people on the street. We just met a man who is an artist. He makes hats and T-shirts and look he made this hat with my name on it and mom bought it for me. Tomorrow I’m going to show everyone in my class. Amsterdam is so nice. I hope we can come back here ..read more

“I never had a strong desire to become a parent. Neither did my wife. We took over my parents cafe instead. We worked for more than 40 years to keep the business going. You could say that the cafe was our child. When we retired we had to sell the cafe. It was hard giving up our business. However, we still live above the cafe and the new owners are doing a great job. Now that I am retired, I spend most of my days reading the paper and taking walks around Amsterdam. When I am tired I stay nearby. When I feel adventurous, I explore different parts of town. My wife and I, we do our own thing. We h ..read more

‘’Julia studies medicine in Warsaw and I study music composition here at the conservatory. We have been doing this long-distance-kind-of-relationship for a while now. A while ago, I needed to come up with a new concept for an opera. I couldn’t come up with anything when Julia all of a sudden said: ‘’maybe you should do your next piece about the Albatross birds.’’ I had never heard of this bird but she explained that the Albatross is a very strong an independent bird. It is fine with traveling across the world all by its self. However sooner or later it always returns to their significant other ..read more

3/3 “I always wanted to learn how to play basketball so I googled: How to play basketball? in Arabic. I only got English search results so that is when I realized I needed to learn English. Since I only had an education until the age of 9, a lot of basic things like reading and writing or knowing how to use a computer is really difficult for me. I found out about free classes at the Migrant CommunityCentre in Beirut. I took English and Computer classes and I met a lot of people from different backgrounds. One day I met a volunteer. She was a therapist and I told her my story. She offered me fr ..read more

2/3 ”My friend told me that my youngest brother got murdered. He got into trouble with a group of criminals in Aleppo and they killed him. I immediately packed my stuff and I went back to Aleppo for the funeral. The next day, after the funeral my father and grandfather came up to me. They told me that I needed to take revenge on the men who killed my little brother. They had already arranged a gun for me. As much as I was hurt, there was no way I was going to kill anyone. I told them: ‘’If I do it, there is no difference between me and the criminals who killed my brother.’’ That night I left A ..read more