Hello,
One of the challenges of the New Arrivals project is that while we are focusing on a few individual cases we know there is no one refugee story.
This is a diverse group – from a huge number of countries, social backgrounds, and educational levels. Some are gregarious and optimistic, others traumatised and withdrawn. Some quickly embrace their new country, others long for their homeland and will return as soon as it is safe to do so.
In the second film of the series, we meet Mobin Pourbabaei a 30-year-old, football-mad PE teacher from Iran, which last year was the most common country of origin for people seeking asylum in the UK, with 4,192 applications, three times the number of applications from Syrians.
Mobin lives in Nottingham, just half an hour from Said Norzai, the Afghan asylum seeker the Guardian has been following as part of our New Arrivals series, but Mobin’s story could not be more different to Said’s.
While Said and his son Wali Khan have had their asylum claim refused and are now starting the appeals process, Mobin’s claim was granted in November 2016, less than six months after arriving in the country.
Said faces the torment of not knowing whether his wife and other six children are still alive. Mobin was forced to leave his wife of just a year, Sepide, in Iran, but now he has refugee status, has the right to apply for her to be brought to the UK under family reunion provisions.
The film follows their struggle to be reunited. It’s a moving story of a couple in love and full of hope for their future.
If you have a tip for a story for this series, or there’s reporting you think we should be doing that you’d like to read, do get in touch – kate.lyons@guardian.co.uk
