Dr Kaly Jaff on the story of how she came to Glasgow as a refugee

Dr Kaly Jaff came to Scotland as a child escaping from war in her native land. She tells this story with her mum on the first episode of her podcast.

Transcript

00:00I mean the first episode of the podcast is with my mum and I don't think if I recorded that episode

00:08before I was a mum it would have been as hard-hitting as it was now that I am because

00:15I look back at my childhood and it was wonderful. I had a really fun childhood. I never felt unsafe.

00:22I never felt like I was behind or different in any way. It was only in high school when comments

00:27started to come from other children that I felt like oh hold on I'm not from here or I don't fit

00:33in. My mum and dad really made me believe that I was just a normal child and and that's why I

00:39enlisted my children. They're just normal and everyone's the same so I'm thinking now as a

00:44mother to potentially wake up tomorrow and have to pack up my bags and leave with just the two

00:50children on and what I could carry on my back is incredibly terrifying and I can't imagine the

00:55strength that my mum and dad would have had to experience to do that. If you listen to the first

01:01episode you'll hear the story in more detail but my mum and dad also had to split into different cars

01:07so my mum and the children were in one and my father was in another one in the risk that if

01:13they were to get caught we could sacrifice my dad who was really the person that was

01:18rustling the wrong feathers politically and in 1989 when we were fleeing there was no mobile

01:25phone so my mum and dad just had to leave and we had a meeting point in Istanbul

01:32and my mum had to wait five days before he arrived so it's I mean there's when I listen

01:38to it you'll listen to the podcast I'm crying the whole time because I just can't believe that that

01:42even happened. I can't believe my mum had to experience that and that's the drive that makes

01:47me want to be successful because I want to make sure that all the suffering was not in vain you

01:53did all that but this is what came of it and I didn't want them to do all that and I ended up

01:59not wanting to have a drive or be successful so yeah it's incredibly harder to hear it as

02:06a mother now than it would have been when I didn't have my own children.