The child refugee and the big red bicycle
Mevan Babakar fled Iraq as an infant and eventually settled in the UK. It was a challenging journey but one she remembers with fondness due to a beautiful gift from a stranger.
Mevan Babakar and her parents fled Iraq when she was only an infant. Over the next five years they travelled through and lived in multiple countries including Russia and the Netherlands before eventually settling in the UK.
It was a difficult and sometimes dangerous journey. Mevan only has limited memories of that time but one that stands out is the kindness of a stranger in the Netherlands who gifted her a red bicycle. That bicycle gave Mevan permission to be a child and allowed her for the first time to feel unadulterated happiness.
Years later, as an adult Mevan decided to revisit her childhood experiences, retracing their footsteps from Iraq to the UK which involved an unplanned and moving reunion.
Mevan has written a children鈥檚 book about her experience called The Bicycle: How an Act of Kindness Changed a Young Refugee鈥檚 Life.
Presenter: Mobeen Azhar
Producer: Tom Harding Assinder
Get in touch: outlook@bbc.com or WhatsApp +44 330 678 2707
(Photo: Mevan Babakar as a child and an illustration of Mevan and her bicycle. Photo credit: Mevan Babakar; Image credit: Yas Imamura)
Last on
Broadcasts
- Thu 1 Aug 2024 11:06GMT麻豆社 World Service
- Thu 1 Aug 2024 17:06GMT麻豆社 World Service except East and Southern Africa & West and Central Africa
- Thu 1 Aug 2024 21:06GMT麻豆社 World Service East and Southern Africa & West and Central Africa only
- Fri 2 Aug 2024 02:06GMT麻豆社 World Service
Contact Outlook
Info on how we might use your contribution on air
Podcast: Lives Less Ordinary
Step into someone else鈥檚 life and expect the unexpected