I don’t feel foreign in Denmark. Some people claim that Danish people are closed, but the vast majority of people I meet are open and helpful.

I have one close girl friend here in Denmark. Her name is Asmeret and she is also from Eritrea. Otherwise I don’t have any friends my own age yet, but I have met people older than me who have become my Danish family. Kirsten, Bodil, Yosef, Vita, and Per. They help me with all kinds of stuff.

There are people that I miss, but I don’t feel alone, because I am surrounded by people from Eritrea and from Denmark who are there for me, and I constantly try to get to know more people. For instance I have signed up for a group on Facebook, “Girl fun with DFUNK – only for girls” with almost only Danish girls. It is important to me to become fluent in Danish, so that I can have an education. I dream of becoming a doctor, and I pray to God that this will happen. Sometimes, when everything seems impossible and I miss my family and friends in Eritrea, I ask myself why I came here, but then I pray to God and listen to church music. It soothes me. I feel happy when I go to church and when I sing in church. When I am there I forget all my problems. My religion is Orthodox Tewahedo Christian, and it has a therapeutic effect on me.

Diana Habtom / 20 years / female / single / attends language school / Frederiksberg / from Eritrea / came to Denmark in 2015 / residence permit same year

I am 100% Syrian. I don’t think I will ever feel Danish. People will always ask me where I come from.

I was 14 years old when I fled on my own to Denmark. My parents were well-known activists, so we could all have been exposed during the escape if they came with me. It was really terrible leaving my family and my homeland. I left everything I knew, and I didn’t know where I was going or whether I would ever see my family again. We flew to Algeria, drove and walked to Lebanon, and from there by boat to Italy. I was scared and I felt completely alone. On the way I wasn’t able to get in touch with my family, and this made me even more anxious. It took us about a month to travel to Denmark, and when I look back at my journey, I know that I was one of the lucky ones. Many disappeared during the journey. On arrival, I was put in a residential institution for children and young people. I couldn’t speak the language, and it was unpleasant, but it also forced me to learn Danish really fast. Every day I would sit in my room and teach myself five verbs. After two years I was reunited with my parents. It was the best day of my life.

Being on my own from 14 to 16 made me very independent, so it hasn’t been easy living with my parents again.

I am used to making my own decisions, and even though they had many rules at the institution, it is quite different being in my parent’s custody again. They also have a hard time. They have lost everything, and it is tough to see them having to start their lives all over again.

When I was ten, my parents decided to leave Somalia. We split up, and my mother took the seven oldest children while I and my two youngest went with my father. I was the eldest, so it was often I who had to look after my siblings. It took us two years to travel to Denmark and three years before we were all reunited. I have so many horrible memories that I am still trying to forget. I remember a pregnant woman who died from dehydration. We sat with her body all day before they carried her out of the bus.

I grew up quickly. I got married at 16, I became a mother at 17, and I was divorced at 19. Two years ago the doctors found out that my kidneys are no longer working the way they should. This was hard to accept.

My family doesn’t live nearby, so being a single mother and ill is sometimes too much to handle. My son actually thought that I worked at the hospital because I have to go there for dialysis treatment three times a week. When I was young I didn’t reflect on the meaning of life. After I became ill I have become more religious. My mother showed me the way. Her last lesson to me was to be grateful for life and to hope. She died in December after having been diagnosed with liver cancer only three months previously. Life can be really tough, but there is always hope ahead, and I know that one day I will get a call from the hospital announcing that they have a kidney for me. I am not foreign here in Denmark, but I am not Danish either. I really just want my son to become a man.

28 years / female / single / child / sick leave / Søborg / from Somalia / came to Denmark in 2006 / residence permit in 2007

Apart from the language, I don’t feel foreign here at all. The language is a barrier, but it can be conquered.

I became a mother at 17 and fled from Iran when my daughter was only 7 months old. I was confused, and I just followed everyone else. Things happened, and I had no influence at all. I was naïve and ignorant and knew nothing about the world. The first years in Denmark continued just like that. I looked after my child and just followed.

It wasn’t until I started at a VUC adult education course that I woke up. Until then I had been someone’s daughter, someone’s wife and someone’s mother, but I had never been me. As I started doing things myself, I developed an identity.

For the first time in my life I began to relate to myself as an independent person. I found out what I was good at. I am patient and I keep cool when utter chaos prevails. I realised that I like working with people. I began to dream of becoming a nurse, but the system was lined with barriers, and they ruined the dream. Today I am a trained social and health care assistant. My work gives me a special outlook on life that helps define me. I am the mother of two girls. I tell them that they need to educate themselves so they can experience independence and get to know themselves and their limits, like I have.