After fleeing Afghanistan due to Taliban threats, Fahim Atayee's resilience and determination led him to Australia. Now, with support from the Northcote Trust Scholarship, he pursues his dreams while helping his family build a brighter future.
Fahim Atayee is one impressive young man. At 20 years old, he has experienced more trauma and upheaval than most of us can imagine. When he was just 14, Fahim and his family had to leave everything behind and flee Afghanistan because his father Hussain – who worked at the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) – was being threatened by the Taliban.
“My dad was getting threatened over the phone and in person. People were coming to his work asking the location of his family,” Fahim says.
The final straw for Hussain and his wife Ziagul was a 2015 terrorist attack at the Gawharshad University in Kabul. Fahim’s two brothers were standing nearby. Hussain got in touch with a cousin in Quetta, Pakistan, who helped arrange their escape.
Fahim’s three older sisters were already living in other countries so Hussain and Ziagul packed the remaining family members – Fahim, three brothers and two sisters – into two cars and fled Kabul.
Fahim Atayee, who received the Northcote Trust Scholarship
Fahim remembers: “I was sitting in the back of a hatchback and when we would get near a police checkpoint the driver told me to cover myself with a blanket because it was illegal to be in the back. If the police saw me, they could confiscate the car and send the driver to prison.”
The family drove for many hours until they reached Kandahar, a city near the Pakistan border. There they swapped cars and drivers and continued on to Pakistan.
“We went through the border illegally because we didn’t have passports. Two Pakistani guys were there to take us the rest of the way. It took about 17 hours of non-stop driving for us to get to Quetta,” says Fahim.
They stayed with family there for a few months before renting their own place. Life wasn’t easy: as refugees they had no rights or assistance from Pakistan.
To support his family, Hussain worked in a shop until he was able to open his own small electronics repair business. Fahim worked as much as he could before and after school to help.
“I was painting houses and I worked at a clothing store as well. My cousin in Afghanistan shipped carpets to me and some friends with a Pakistani ID card helped me ship them to places like Italy, Spain and Australia,” he says.
“My dad never forced us to work. He just said ‘focus on your studies’. Even my uncle said
My dream is for you to complete your education at the highest level, not for you to get rich. Get the highest level of education, and then it's up to you whether to get rich or not.
The family had hoped to go to America, where Fahim’s sister lived. But by the time they got to Pakistan, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) offices in Quetta – which was helping newly arrived Afghan refugees get to the US – had closed. “They just closed all the applications, all the offices, everything,” says Fahim.
Luckily Fahim has a cousin in Australia who is a migration lawyer. He told the family that they could apply for a humanitarian visa to Australia but it would take three to five years to be approved. They applied in 2019 but COVID-19 put everything on hold.
In January 2022 they finally got a call to say that they had an interview with immigration in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. Their visa came in March 2022 and the family arrived in Australia on 1 November 2022.
Fahim says it was a tough environment to grow up in but it made him determined to do his best. “It kind of becomes one of your strengths; like you’re not afraid of anything anymore. You just hustle to work harder and move on.”
When they arrived in Australia, the family lived with a cousin for a month before moving into their own place nearby. With no ATAR – he had finished high school in Pakistan – Fahim had to sit English and maths tests before applying to RMIT.
He is now studying a Diploma of Business and hopes to progress to an undergraduate degree. “I’d like to be an investment banker but it’s very competitive so If I can’t do that, I could be a financial planner.”
Knowing family finances were tight, Fahim explored online for scholarships. “The Northcote Trust looked like the best one for me. Two weeks later I found out I was accepted. My parents were excited and Mum said, ‘I knew you could do it, there's nothing that you can't do here’.”
Hussain had worked for the AIHRC for 16 years. Now he is doing gardening. “Some people that know my dad can't believe it, but he's so humble. He doesn't care about it at all,” Fahim says.
Having inherited his dad’s work ethic, Fahim initially took a role as an aged care and disability worker. Now, he teaches chess to high school students around his own studies. He says the scholarship helps him make his contribution to family life.
“Everyone in the family who works contributes money for rent and bills. As well as working, I receive a small student payment from Centrelink. The scholarship is $5,000 which is a lot of money and I try to save as much of it as I can.”
But the real value of the scholarship goes far beyond the financial. I used to dream about meeting someone at a higher level; someone who's an ex-Judge or running a university. When I went to the [RMIT] scholarship dinner, I was lucky enough to meet those people.
“I care more about the connections I make. Even in the job that I'm doing right now, I'm just trying to make more connections to build a network. So if I want to get a better job, I would know some people to say ‘hey, I know this guy, he's a good kid’.”
The Northcote Trust has been supporting RMIT students since 2008. Northcote Trust Scholarships provide up to $5,000 per year for students who have progressed or intend to progress from an RMIT diploma to an undergraduate degree in a similar field.
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