A new country, a new language, a new routine… and a sentence she carries within, still waiting to be completed: “I want to go to school.”
She started school again in Türkiye. But life doesn’t always let you continue from where you left off. Financial hardships, the language barrier, and the weight of the adaptation process soon interrupted the new path she had just begun, and Sidra’s education had to be discontinued once again. This time, this disruption ran even deeper, because she was no longer just a student, she was the oldest child in her family.
Responsibility caused her to grow up quickly. During this period, she got married. While each passing day felt similar to the next, that familiar sentence always quietly remained within her: “I must continue.” Over time, this sentence became more than just a wish, it became a guiding direction.
Despite her husband’s objections, she had the support of her parents and enrolled in an open high school. This wasn’t just a return to education; it was a way to reclaim her life and to hear her own voice again. During that period, with the suggestion of a friend, she discovered the Ankara Community Center of the Association for Social Development and Aid Mobilization (ASAM).
At first, she only visited the center to attend a course. Then, she also joined a computer course. Each new thing she learned was not just a skill, it was a growing sense of confidence. “I started feeling much stronger after coming here.” This sentence was the simplest and truest expression of her transformation.
Eventually, the center became more than just a place for her. In the speaking club, her vocabulary developed and her voice grew stronger. In workshops, her hands started producing. And perhaps for the first time, her dreams began to take shape.
She wanted to become a computer engineer, as she was no longer just building dreams, she was making effort to achieve those dreams. A simple skill she learned in the knitting and sewing workshop had turned into a much bigger idea in her mind. The discipline of production she developed in the workshop was combined with her interest in computers, opening a whole new path for her. Now, her goal is to expand what she learned, build her own path, and stand on her own two feet.
But what she is really trying to build is not just a job, but it is her own life. “I want to prove myself, first and foremost to myself, not to anyone else”, she says.
Today, through referral from ASAM Ankara Community Center, Sidra has applied to the Building Bright Futures (PARGEL) project, implemented by the Entrepreneurship Development Foundation (MESVAK) as part of the Enhancer Project of the International Center for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD), and has started her trainings. With the inspiration gained from the knitting and sewing workshop she attended at the center, Sidra seeks to complete this process and step into the business world by writing a grant project.
And today, as she tells her own story, she sums it all up in a single sentence:
“I started not from where I left off, but from where it remained within me.”