WEBVTT

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My name is Mahmoud Aghiorly

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and I am a volunteer translator with TED.

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I am from Syria,


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and I am from the city called Aleppo,
located on the North.

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This city is an ancient city

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Actually, it's been there 3,000 years

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but now within 4 years
everything's just finished.

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Most of my places in memories and
buildings that I loved, are destroyed.

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And they're just bent down,
or bombed, or just throwing.

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These places are not there right now

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We told Adam so many stories

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but actually, it's very difficult for us

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that he can't live in there.

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And it touched me in my heart.

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Actually, as a woman and as a mother that

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my baby wouldn't have the ability to visit
his father's places or mother's places.

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so yeah

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Me and my brother were posted in engineers

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and we were dreaming actually to have
an engineering consultant obviously

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but the engineering office was
in the middle and heated area

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so it was also mostly destroyed.

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So I think even you imagine
future is destroyed or bent down

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I spent around 5 years into it

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then I immigrate to Australia by 2015.

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We came here on the second day
of November.

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Last year, everthing was dark

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and when the sun rises,
it is a new life.

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Everything seems beautiful,

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everything is green with so much flowers.

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We want Adam to live in a better world

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We want him to have a great life.

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And I think that 


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he was the main reason
why we took that immigrated decision.

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It was not an easy decision to take.

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Moving to another country, that is
totally different what we used to,

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is not that easy.

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We are so happy right now,

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and we know what we did
is for us and for Adam as well.

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Starting from February to August,

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I was searching everyday and
sending around 10 or 12 CVs.

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Actually, the main advice is
to change my name

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because Madmoud sounds 
so much traditional.

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The second advice they asked me
to hide my place of birth,

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and my origin of my certificate.

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They told me that nation
makes me think about Syria.

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I didn't choose the country
that I was born in.

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And I didn't choose my name.

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So, people are judging me
with things that I didn't choose.

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I choose how I'm going to
deal with the problems,

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and having a proper channel for new ideas.

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It is very essential for people
who are coming from a war zone,

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and people who are coming
from a lost path.

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Ted will provide you
a proper channel of many ideas

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from so many people around the world.

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You can directly relate to someone
who is facing the same problem,

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to someone who just immigrates
to the new country,

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to someone who is starting a new family,
or some who's facing problems.

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Mahmoud has a great way
of loving and giving.

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And I think volunteering is a way
of loving and giving.

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Translating from a language
to another language is a great boat.

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(Music)