Bakhtiar Ahmad

"I came to Adelaide in 2015. I was really pampered back home. Due to some issues back home I was given a choice to move either to Australia or Canada and I chose Australia, Adelaide, Flinders University.

The agent who applied for my visa arranged a guy from Pakistan to receive me from the airport. I had $1000 given to me by my family. I got a call from the guy at Dubai airport asking me if I could get him some cigarettes from duty free shop. I checked the price they were really expensive. I didn’t buy them because I was out of cash. As we landed in Adelaide, I called him, saying that I had arrived. He said: “Did you get the cigarettes?”. I said “no”, so he did not accept me. I was clueless and decided to stay the first night at the airport, but I did not tell my family. I said I was with the guy and in a room.

I was really disturbed and disappointed and cried a lot, but this incident helped me to be a strong individual.

At 5am I took a cab and asked him to take me to Flinders Uni.

The campus was huge. I had no clue what to do in the dark cold night. I was sitting in car park 6 and eventually at around 7am people started coming to Uni and helped me.

I got cleaning jobs which I did for 3 years and it helped paying all my expenses by myself. I completed my degree. I am happy now.