So when I hear stories of prejudice and racism, I know for sure that it exists but my experience in New Zealand has been amazingly warm and welcoming.” “We wove naturally into the fabric of New Zealand society. I think it helps that I came as a young child, went to primary school, learned the language, started playing rugby,” says Nazari. I can’t recall any instances where I was marginalised or I was on the receiving end of a whole heap of crap at all.

“I can’t recall any instances of racism, and that’s the same experience for the vast majority of my family and community. Waiting at the airport was a huge contingent of locals to welcome them – warmth and acceptance that Nazari says set the tone for the family’s new life in New Zealand. Then, his parents – a stay-at-home mum and a truck-driver dad – were flown to the South Island with their five children to settle into a state house in Christchurch. Nazari first learned English at the Mangere Refugee Resettlement centre in Auckland, weeks he remembers for the “stable ground” beneath his feet, regular meals and the lifelong friendships formed with other Tampa kids. Nazari, 23, says the intense scrutiny that has come with his achievement mildly bugs him, with its suggestion that his academic nous is somehow exceptional, rather than a broader indicator of the potential of all refugee kids to thrive when given a chance. The scholarship was awarded just days before World Refugee Day, marked around the world on Thursday. This week Nazari, a first-class honours graduate of international relations and diplomacy from the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, was awarded a prestigious Fulbright scholarship, granting him a year’s postgraduate study at Columbia University in New York. Who the hell is New Zealand, and where is that? That was quickly dispelled by ‘at least it’s as far away from this boat as possible’.” “One day we were told that little old New Zealand was willing to accept us … that news was a huge, huge blessing. “Every day we received updates that ‘sorry, nothing has happened, no country is willing to accept you guys’,” remembers Nazari, now a civil servant in Wellington. Marooned at sea, Nazari and his family were at the mercy of international goodwill, in the same week as two planes flew into the twin towers in New York. Abbas Nazari with US ambassador to New Zealand Scott Brown and NZ’s deputy PM Winston Peters.

After the Tampa by Abbas Nazari