Pakenham’s newest barber shop has been opened by local Hassan Mohammadi. What lies behind the friendly face of the new local barber is a powerful refugee story of struggle and perseverance, as journalist COREY EVERITT reports.
Hassan only just opened Alpha Barbers earlier this month along Treloar Lane in the centre of Pakenham.
At the moment he is the owner and sole barber at the business which is open seven days a week from 9am to 7pm.
Hassan works these ten hours each day to support his wife and young children in their home at Lakeside Pakenham.
It’s a lot of work starting a new business all by himself, however, the seven years he has spent in Australia thus far have been probably the most comfortable of his life.
Hassan is Afghan, but was born in Iran.
His parents left Afghanistan during the Soviet Invasion in 1979 as the larger conflicts destablising the country begun to get worse and would continue to grow.
“Russia couldn’t take Afghanistan, they left and the other problem is coming after,” Hasan said.
“War and war and war, that’s why my parents moved to Iran, to survive life.”
Furthermore, Hassan’s family is Hazara.
Hazaras are an ethnic group native to north-central Afghanistan, they are routinely oppressed by the swathe of different Afghan governments both for their ethnicity and their predominantly Shi’a Islam practice in a Sunni Islam majority country.
Living in Iran, however, wasn’t easy for immigrants.
His parents moved to Mashad in the North-Eastern part of Iran close to the borders of Afghanistan and Turkmenistan.
His parents were given a temporary visa, despite ‘temporary’, it effectively had to be renewed every year at a great cost with little prospect of something more permanent.
While the Iranian Government placed heavy restrictions on the movement, education and employment for immigrants and refugees.
His parents had to raise a family with poor income and living conditions working in Mashhad.
Hassan was born in 1982, only a short time after the move.
Him and all his siblings were born on Iranian soil, yet the Iranian Government gave them the same temporary immigrant status as their parents.
“It’s very hard for the immigrant in Iran,” Hassan said.
“My sisters and brothers, they couldn’t study because rule in Iran said you’re only allowed up to primary.”
“So when I was growing up I was doing a lot of jobs.”
Because of the family’s inability to get a proper education and the general poverty, Hassan started working when he was seven.
He started in a small factory making shoes, when he was 13 he moved on to work in construction as a plasterer.
He would have many other jobs over his childhood and into adulthood, many of which included working with his father to make money for the family to get by.
Being born a migrant in the country he was born in was tough from the beginning.
“That’s the problem, first the government doesn’t allow you to study and second it is a bit hard because we are a big family.”
Hassan had carried this life well into adulthood, but a breaking point would come when he married his wife Halma and began his own family.
“I’m growing up, I get married and then in that time in 2007 my son was born,” Hassan said.
“I decided to go to the Iran Government and I say ‘OK, my son was born in Iran, he needs permanent residence or citizenship’.
“I thought, when I was born, they don’t have that rule anymore, after my son was born they didn’t give him anything as well, just a temporary visa.”
Hassan’s son, Amirali, had inherited the same immigrant status that began two generations before him, despite him and his father being born in Iran.
“I was born there, they didn’t give me nothing, after I get married my son was born there they didn’t give him nothing, same as me,” he said.
“With my son, always I’m thinking when he is growing up without his study it’s very hard for him, maybe I’ll have two, three kids, I was thinking always they will be growing up without study and be a simple worker same as me, it’s very bad.
“When my son got to six-years-old I decided to move from Iran, to any country, to have a good life.”
Leaving Iran is hard with many restrictions on the movement of refugees and migrants, but during 2012-13 Hassan had to find some way for his son not to have the life he had.
“I came from Iran to Malaysia, by smuggler, spent a lot of money,” he said.
“I wanted to move from Iran, any country, they said if you go into Malaysia you can stay there, go to the United Nations, get refugee status and they will send you to any country.”
“I get to Malaysia and everyone says, ‘no Indonesia is a better and faster process’.”
Hassan, Halma and Amirali spent only two days in Malaysia before being smuggled across borders again.
Between Malaysia and Indonesia, the trip showed the danger and desperation involved in those seeking refuge across the world.
“To Indonesia, we came by boat, at that time my wife was pregnant for about three months,” Hassan said.
“The smuggler said ‘OK, you should be ready tonight’.
“First we are in the jungle, after we are going to the beach, they said ‘we should go in the water, so no one sees you’ because sometimes the police will come and see you with the light.
“We are up to our necks in the water for an hour before the boat arrives.
“I have two backpacks, one on the back, one on the front, my son is at the top holding on to my neck and my wife is also holding my hand.”
The boat ride was three and a half hours straight to Indonesia.
“The boat was very fast, a small boat but very fast always jumping in the water.”
“85 or 90 kilometres per-hour on the boat, it’s very hard, everyone is shaking, always.”
They arrived in the city of Medan where they had to then fly to Jakarta.
“Everything is fake, the ID fake, everything, they make it for us and then they say ‘this hat, wear it’,” he said.
“We wear that hat, when we arrive at the airport a man just pointed to us and said ‘walk behind me’.”
“That time I couldn’t speak any other language at all, just everything with body language, there is a lot of reading and I can’t read it.
“The man says ‘don’t go with any taxi, if you talk to them they will understand you are coming from another country and most of them will report to police’.”
Immediately things seemingly went wrong.
“Right when I come out of the airport, there is a police officer who calls me over.”
“I believe he was just managing traffic, it was very rainy that day and he said ‘taxi?’, I said yes and then he got a taxi for us.
“I have the address to the hotel the smuggler said we had to go to, I showed the taxi driver and he takes us there.”
Having made it to the hotel despite the harrowing situation, Hassan went to the city’s office for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
“They register you and give you a paper, and they say ‘go and come back, we will evaluate you’.”
They received a four-month asylum in Indonesia.
Unfortunately, their struggles were far from over.
“My wife was in very bad health because of the baby, bleeding, she had a miscarriage because of the boat,” he said.
“I took her to the hospital and she was there for a week.
“I had about 2000 American dollars, we had to pay 1500, we had just 500 left.”
They ended up spending six months in Jakarta, it was hard to survive with the little they had.
After Jarkarta they were moved to a detention centre.
“We were in a detention centre for around one year,” Hasan said.
“For one year we couldn’t go out, the room was a little bit bigger than this room.”
Hasan is referring to the main floor of the small barber shop.
“There is a toilet, a shower, there are four families inside,” he said.
It took 18 months for Hassan and his family to get refugee status, where they were taken out of detention and put in another hotel for processing.
“UNHCR called me, I give an interview again and they say ‘we will send you to New Zealand, are you happy with this’, I said ‘yes, anywhere, I just want to go from here’,” Hassan said.
Yet things were stalled again after this for months, with more and more questions and interviews with Hassan not having a clear path out of there.
After some time, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) gets involved.
“The IOM called me and say ‘where are you’ and I say ‘I’m at home’, they say ‘you stay home I want to talk to you’,” he said.
“When he comes, he gives me a paper of an Australian form and he says ‘you are very lucky, the Australians chose you and we will send you to Australia’.”
The process after which was quick, with the flight and visa ready, but Halma had become pregnant again and they were told they had to wait as a flight isn’t safe for the baby.
They stayed, despite their desperation to go, and waited for their second child, a daughter named Helema, to be born where they had to go through the process of getting refugee status for her.
It was seven months later, a total over two years in limbo, when everything was OK to finally go to Australia.
24 December, 2016, was the day Hassan, Halma and their two children arrived in Australia.
They arrived originally in Mildura, where they were given their permanent residency visas and told, possibly for the first time in their lives, that they “can go anywhere”.
Though finally achieving a home, not knowing anyone, not knowing much of the culture or the language is a big hurdle for refugees and migrants like Hassan in Australia.
“When we came to Mildura, we didn’t know anyone there, it’s a small city,” he said.
“After, I went to Sydney for about three years, very expensive, crazy you know, so I decided to move from Sydney to here.”
With the fortune of a friend he made who lived in Melbourne, he got the assistance to acquire a more affordable place to live.
They found a place in Doveton originally, then after a few years they bought a house in Pakenham, where Hassan started the barber shop in May.
Having spent his life in an uncertain future and worrying for his children, Hassan is grateful to have Australia as a home.
“I like Australia, I like the people, I’m proud of the government, after four years we applied for our citizenship and we got it, I like Australia, really proud,” he said.
It was late last year when Hassan and the family received their citizenship and ceremony.
Hassan and Halma had another child, a boy named Ryan.
He was born here, so there wasn’t as much trouble with his status.
Though it isn’t just smooth sailing for Hassan, he is still working hard to support his family back in Iran.
“The problem now is my family, I’ve got two sisters and a brother, that are left with my mother,” Hassan said.
“I’m still sending money to my sister and mother, it’s very hard.
“It’s too hard for them, if I don’t send them money, they definitely die, they can’t work.”
This is why Hassan dedicates himself to working so much, he solely runs the barber shop now, being there every day for ten hours.
Hassan would want them to join him in Australia, but the cost, time and red tape involved between both the Iranian and Australian Government is too hard at this time.
Along with family back in Iran, one of Hassan’s brothers is in Malaysia, going through the same process hoping to reach a permanent home.
But the work is worth it, for Hassan’s love of meeting people and supporting his family, abroad and locally.
“I wanted to open a barber shop, I want to stay here forever,” he said about life in Pakenham.
Meeting the locals is a great joy for Hassan.
“I’m talking always – it’s why my English is better – when I came here, I couldn’t speak it at all,” he said.
“I can’t understand everything, I can’t speak very well, but everyone understands.”
Hassan will apologise for his English seemingly to everyone he encounters, but it hides his skills that are beyond the average person.
As well as his mother tongue and picking up English, he can speak Malay very well, some Sinhala and Filipino and Mandarin.
“For anyone, I know a few words, the customers are happy I talk to them in their language,” he said.
“I learn from the customer, it’s very friendly.”
Hassan credits his life to having the ability to communicate with and appreciate everyone he encounters in life.
Most of all, the hard work Hassan does is all for the very reason why he and Halma decided to leave Iran.
Hassan can’t help shedding tears when looking at photos of his children and their lives here.
His youngest boy, Ryan, is 18 months old and his daughter, Helena, is six-years-old attending John Henry Primary School.
Amirali has been through the same journey as him since the beginning in Iran as just a boy and is now 15 years old attending St Francis Xavier College looking to pursue a career in his passion, coding.
“He is a good boy, smart, that’s why I sent him to the private school, it costs a lot, but I say no problem, I’m working very hard it doesn’t matter,” he said.
“Why do I give them this, because I never had it in my life, my life was in Iran, I was a simple worker, I want to do everything that is the best for them.
“My son was the same as us, when he came here he couldn’t speak English.
“When I went to the school during his first week, he was just sitting in the middle with the boys looking around, he couldn’t understand.
“Now he is perfect, very quick, unbelievable.”
Hassan is endlessly grateful to Australia for giving his family a home, but Australia and Pakenham should also be grateful for having people like Hassan.
