Teen Parliament: Afghan asylum seeker Mobin Achakzai wants to make a difference

Year 12 student Mobin Achakzai will attend The Advertiser’s Teen Parliament on Friday with a mission to fix a problem in Adelaide he says reminds him of Afghanistan.

Afghan asylum seeker Mobin Achakzai travelled to Australia by boat with his mother and three siblings without food and water.

The 16-year-old Windsor Gardens Year 12 student will appear in The Advertiser’s Teen Parliament on Friday morning, where he is set to discuss his ideas of improving how homelessness in SA is treated, as well as desires to reform the education system.

The parliament in the House of Assembly is part of The Advertiser’s inaugural Building a Bigger, Better South Australia campaign.

IQRA College student Mobin Achakzai ahead of the Teen Parliament on Friday. Picture: Mark Brake

The IQRA College student said homelessness in city parks reminded him of Afghanistan.

“Back in Afghanistan, poverty is very common, and what I see here kind of reminded me how my country was and how my life was there,” Mobin said.

“It shouldn’t be like that, if there are people who can actually help them and if I can help them we should support them.”

His mother, Malika, 42, was widowed when Mobin was three, and strived to take her four children to a country where they could fulfil their potential.

The family lived in a village on the outskirts of Kabul.

Mobin came from a village on the outskirts of the capital Kabul. Picture: AFP

“My Mum was left all alone with four children and she knew that if we stayed there, we wouldn’t have a proper education considering the terrible conditions,” he said.

“One of my uncles found out that there was a possibility that we could go to Australia, and we’d never heard of Australia or what it was and where it was.”

Mobin said an application for a visa to travel to Australia took about three years, before his family made a perilous three-day journey by boat in December 2012, without food or clean water.

“We came here with zero English, I think I only knew two-to-three English words like ‘apple’ and ‘clock’ taught to me by my aunt,” Mobin said.

Speaker Dan Cregan will preside over the Teen Parliament.

He said he felt like an “outcast” until he became fluent in English. An intense desire for more affordable tertiary education for those less fortunate and unable to access a HECS debt, such as visa holders who are not permanent citizens like Mobin, was a passion of his.

He hopes to study biomedical engineering at university, but said it was “unachievable” for someone of his background.

“We don’t have a permanent visa, and we’re not permanent residents with a citizenship … so for university we can’t get a HECS debt and aren’t financially capable for paying for that,” he said.

Mobin’s sister Mohsina, 17, and brothers Samar, 15 and Zia, 14, cannot gain employment because of their visa status.