00:00 Naimatullah Zafari.
00:02 [cheering]
00:03 I carried Afghanistan because I just wanted to give a message to Afghan girls.
00:08 Your feeling was there with me.
00:10 And the struggle that you're going through, no matter what, you will be the one I want there.
00:16 You will make it.
00:17 [cheering]
00:19 [music]
00:27 We left Afghanistan when the collapse happened in 2021.
00:33 I left my country along with my family on the 23rd of August from Afghanistan,
00:38 coming from a very difficult situation, crossing 20 to 25,000 people with kids with me,
00:46 who at that time, my son was only 18 months old.
00:49 So having female children with you and older age, my parents with me, was a way too difficult.
00:57 It was crossing a few checkpoints from Taliban.
01:01 Crossing that area of 25 to 20,000 people by itself was a very challenging situation.
01:09 So we just only had two pairs of clothes with us and we made it.
01:14 And we came to UK, London.
01:16 I hear the news and in the media, I witnessed that news was the blast.
01:20 The blast, right, where the police, we crossed.
01:25 Had I made a small delay or small mistake, my family might have been on that blast.
01:33 [music]
01:37 I was applying for a student scholarship in 2015 or 2016.
01:46 I was applying every year, keeping in mind it will happen one day.
01:50 So finally it happened in 2021 and I received the Sheeran Scholarship Award.
01:56 But it happened in a time when we lost a country, when we lost a system, when we lost a government.
02:02 A lot of the things which we were hoping for, and thankfully, I made it to University of Sussex.
02:08 [applause]
02:12 I carried a plant flag because I just wanted to give a message to our plant girls.
02:17 But I have also presented you on a stage of a top-notch university of the UK.
02:24 You were there with me. Your feeling was there with me.
02:27 And the struggle that you are going through, no matter what, you will be there.
02:34 The winner will be there. You will make it.
02:36 They will have the stage in Afghanistan.
02:41 They will proudly walk through, represent their country, represent their flag.
02:46 And then it will serve the bigger community.
02:49 When we made it to London, the people, they were coming and they were giving us, you know, sympathetic messages.
03:01 And giving us a hope that things will be fine.
03:04 So thank you to the British people. Thank you to the UK government.
03:09 And also thanks to those who really said yes to our calls for our rights for education.
03:16 [applause]
03:22 [music]
03:24 [silence]
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