{"id":3607,"date":"2019-09-05T04:10:22","date_gmt":"2019-09-05T04:10:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/?p=3607"},"modified":"2019-09-05T04:10:22","modified_gmt":"2019-09-05T04:10:22","slug":"afghani-refugee-happy-to-call-newcastle-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2019\/09\/05\/afghani-refugee-happy-to-call-newcastle-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Afghani refugee happy to call Newcastle home"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>At 21 the life of Afghani refugee Zarmina Ali was a far cry from that enjoyed by most men and women celebrating their rite of passage to adulthood in Australia.<br \/>\nTwelve years ago, the now 33-year-old was living in the midst of civil unrest in war-torn Afghanistan \u2013 10,000km away from the city she now calls home.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" title=\"Citizenshipceremonyinside.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.newcastle.nsw.gov.au\/getattachment\/Council\/News\/Latest-News\/Afghani-refugee-happy-to-call-Newcastle-home\/Citizenshipceremonyinside.jpg.aspx\" alt=\"Citizenshipceremonyinside.jpg\" \/><strong>Zarmin Ali and husband Esmatullah Ali with their two daughters Baha Ali, 10 and Elaha Ali, 6, at today&#8217;s ceremony.<\/strong><br \/>\nIn 2007, Mrs Ali fled Afghanistan for Pakistan with her husband Esmatullah, and it was another five years before they finally secured a refugee visa to settle in Australia with their two daughters Bahar 10, and Elaha 6.<br \/>\nToday, more than seven years since arriving in Newcastle, the Waratah resident will be able to officially call herself Australian.<br \/>\nMrs Ali joined more than 169 new Citizens from 30 countries at today\u2019s City of Newcastle Citizenship Ceremony at the Civic Theatre.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" title=\"Citizenshipceremonyinside1.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.newcastle.nsw.gov.au\/getattachment\/Council\/News\/Latest-News\/Afghani-refugee-happy-to-call-Newcastle-home\/Citizenshipceremonyinside1.jpg.aspx\" alt=\"Citizenshipceremonyinside1.jpg\" \/><br \/>\nGuests were greeted to performances from the Grainery Church and Indigenous dance groups before Newcastle Deputy Lord Mayor Declan Clausen invited citizens to take their citizen oaths and affirmations.<br \/>\n\u201cToday\u2019s Citizenship Ceremony is an historic moment,\u201d the Deputy Lord Mayor said. \u201cThe year 2019 marks 70 years since Australian Citizenship was introduced into law, creating for the first time a legal status of being an Australian.<br \/>\n\u201cAustralians are privileged to live in a true democracy that protects and defends hard-fought freedoms.<br \/>\n\u201cAs Novocastrians, we are proud to be a culturally diverse, inclusive community, united by a commitment to democratic principles and fairness ensuring our residents enjoy equal rights and are treated with equal respect.\u201d<br \/>\nWorking as an Uber driver and studying English at TAFE, Mrs Ali said she will follow her passion for design and fashion now that she has her Citizenship status.<br \/>\n\u201cI am enjoying learning English but I love design and clothes,\u201d she said. \u201cToday is a really happy day for me and I am happy for my children to grow up here. We have a smile on our face.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At 21 the life of Afghani refugee Zarmina Ali was a far cry from that enjoyed by most men and women celebrating their rite of passage to adulthood in Australia. Twelve years ago, the now 33-year-old was living in the midst of civil unrest in war-torn Afghanistan \u2013 10,000km away from the city she now &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2019\/09\/05\/afghani-refugee-happy-to-call-newcastle-home\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Afghani refugee happy to call Newcastle home&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newcastle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3607\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}