‘We love Cardiff.The people are friendly and we feel safe’
These women have sought refuge and built new lives in Wales. Liz Perkins reports
FERYAL Alshayeb fled war-torn Palestine on her third birthday. She was one of 16, including family and friends, to climb into a car and head to Jordan, seeking refuge from all the fighting.
Feryal, now 52 and a mum of four, later left the country, which was home to her mother’s family, and moved to Italy, where she lived with her former husband.
There she worked for the Italian Home Office and at a hospital, offering interpretation skills in a bid to cover the cost of her rent.
But Feryal, of Sloper Road, Cardiff, said it was her marriage break-up and encouragement from a relative which led her to find sanctuary here.
“I feel safe, as my background is coming from war,” she said.
“I was in Palestine for three years as we left our country on my birthday.
“My mother’s family lived in Jordan and my father started to build a home and we went there.
“From Jordan we could see Palestine. I remember my grandfather wanted to die over in Palestine but it was not allowed.
“I only had one relative who lived in Cardiff before. He said to me, ‘Come and see, it’s a nice city’.
“I refused. He said he went to get a ticket for me and had a house and everything.
“My oldest son did not want to stay. After one month he wanted to go to Italy but he now likes Cardiff.
“Cardiff is our city, it’s a quiet city. We have water, it’s green, the people are lovely, they are friendly. I feel safe.”
Feryal speaks with pride over what her four children – Mohamed, 22, Ahmed, 20, Sara, 18, and 13-year-old Omar – have achieved.
“Three are in university, one is in Swansea, another is in the University of West London and my daughter has started university in Preston and studies law. My son is in school.”
She said that after arriving in Cardiff in 2009, she started volunteering at Women Connect, where she learned English and said her children’s “Welsh accent is perfect”.
“My teacher says my son talks like he was born here.
“I went back to Jordan, and wanted to go home to Wales.
“When I came here, I found a job in a restaurant.
“The owner spoke Arabic so I started in Falafel Wales in Canton. I was there for a year and a half. I was two months without work because I had problems with my leg.”
She now cooks food at a care home for the elderly, which has 31 residents.
Sarah Benabas fled her home country of Algeria to give hope to her desperately-ill son.
The mother of three was unable to get the care she needed for Sidali in her home country, so she headed to Britain.
Originally permitted to stay for a month, her son underwent six months of treatment and, due to being an asylum-seeker, Sarah and her family have leave to remain in Britain.
Sarah, 46, of Albany Road in Cardiff, whose husband Sedik Benabas, 60, works in a restaurant, said: “My husband and my friend came here but I had no family.
“One of my three sons has severe epilepsy.
“Two of my children are with my mother.
“My son, he was very ill and we came here.
“We had problems in Algeria and so we came here.
“It’s difficult for me without family and learning to speak English.
“My first languages are Arabic and French.”
She arrived in Britain in March 2011 but she revealed she struggled to settle in London.
But she has embraced the time she has spent in Cardiff and is determined to put the hours in to improve her English.
Sarah said: “I work every day on my English.
“I did GCSE maths and English, I worked very hard and I am good at writing English.
“All my teachers have told me that. I did my foundation in my new college of Cardiff. I have done science and French.”
She is very much focused on the future and creating a career for herself.
“I want to be a teaching assistant,” she said.
“I want to have experience in primary school. I will volunteer and train and afterwards I will be a teaching assistant.
“Before that I will gain skills and experience, as I do volunteering with Women Connect and teach elderly people.”
Sarah said Cardiff reminded her of her home country and she was glad she had decided to move here.
“Algeria is a beautiful country. Cardiff, I find, is like my area of Algeria. I used to live in London and I did not like it. People here are all smiling and I am not scared.
“It’s like my home, I love Cardiff. It’s similar to my country.”
Tragedy has plagued the life of Merbouha Kessour. The 54-year-old, of Tremorfa, Cardiff, was forced to leave Algeria for Britain as she feared for her children’s lives.
Merbouha, who had three children, lost her middle son when he was four to hepatitis.
She moved to Britain in 2003 to protect her family but she suffered further heartache when her husband Noureddine died four years later.
“My husband had a small electricity company out in Algeria.
“Tourism started and if you didn’t give money they would kill your children.
“My husband in 2003 decided to apply for asylum in Britain.
“We had letters and were offered settled status.
“It was very hard. I came with my husband and the two boys.
“Two years later my husband Noureddine was diagnosed with gall bladder cancer and he passed away in 2007.” Her late husband was 48. Her life was thrown into further turmoil as she suffered grief once again.
“I lost my father two years ago,” she said.
“My husband said he wanted to stay here but I didn’t know he would die – we have been suffering.
“In Cardiff people are very friendly and they have helped me.”
The three spoke at the launch of the first Cardiff’s Community Cook, where 40 women from 19 communities will take part in the MasterChef-style contest, staged by South Wales Police and Women Connect First to forge closer ties between the police and black and minority ethnic communities.