Graduating podcaster shares her traumatic refugee story

Asma Amad, 27, graduates today (Friday 11 July) from the University of Salford from our BA Television and Radio Production programme.

The 2025 Create Student Awards winner fled her home country of Iran at the age of 17, experiencing a harrowing ordeal as she was smuggled from Turkey to Greece via a small boat crossing, before eventually making her way into England as a refugee.

Now she wants to create a podcast for former refugees to share their stories and bring wider awareness to the emotional toll of the perilous journeys they take.

She said: “I’ve learnt over the years that even if I wanted to feel like my life could go back to normal, that would never be able to happen. The trauma that I’ve been through - you never go back to feeling normal.

“It will always be there in your mind, and you will always be questioning what you could have done differently, what actions you could have taken.

“I realised that as my trauma will never leave me, I need to get the story out there and help others be able to share their story so we can all find ways to support each other.”

Asma’s story starts in her native city of Mashhad in the North of Iran. Her decision to leave the country came after a dispute between her mother and the Iranian government.

She was pulled into a difficult situation when the local Mosque, summoned her mother to explain rumours that she, who was born a Muslim, had started practicing Christianity, which is against Iranian law.

This dispute grew to the point that Asma felt that she and her mother wouldn’t feel safe in the country, so, the then-17-year-old fled her home with her mother, her two brothers, her sister and her sister’s five-year-old daughter.

Asma’s actions were illegal in the country of Iran as women under the age of 18 are not able to get a passport or leave the country without the permission of their father, who was unaware of their plans to leave Iran.

Asma and her family left in January 2016, making the 188-mile journey on foot through harsh conditions to the Turkish town of Dogubayazit.

She said: “We walked all the way through the mountains, there was like snow up to my knees, it was so cold.

“Once we got there, we didn’t stay in one place very long as we were told not to present as refugees in Turkey because they would have just sent us back to Iran.

“So we just kept going from town to town, city to city. We were trying to eventually get to Greece.

“We slept anywhere and everywhere we could. Once I remember spending a few nights in a really big olive garden. One morning, the owner came and brought us food and I remember crying at the time because I just felt so ashamed.”

Making their way to the west Turkish coast, the family then found smugglers who said they could get them into Greece. The perilous journey would involve getting in a small dinghy from the Turkish resort town of Çeşme across the Aegean sea to the Greek island of Chios. It is one of several routes that many refugees attempt to make and Oxfam have estimated that an average of 1,700 people reach Greek shores every day.

Asma’s family were informed that they would have to leave at a moment’s notice when the opportunity to cross arrived as the town’s coastline is regularly patrolled by local police. Asma and her family were placed in houses by the smugglers whilst they waited for the opportunity to come.

“I remember being in a house, where there must have been about 100 people there. You had just a place on the floor to sit and stay. I heard lots of stories from other refugees, lots of difficult stories about people who had lost family and friends to get there. I decided then that I would find a way to tell their stories.

It was at 2am one morning that the window opened up to make the journey.

“They had three boats and there was about 80 to 90 people in total across them all. They said ‘run, run, run’ when we got to the beach. My mum had told us to grab hands and make sure we stuck together because if you didn’t get in the same boat with your family, you would have no idea where they might end up. It was horrible.

“Our boat was meant for 10 to 15 people, but it was like there was 40 people on it. I don’t know how long it took because I kept passing out as I was seasick and the boat was so crowded.

“I saw some of the other boats fall over. I don’t know for sure if people died but I saw them go into the water.”

Once in Greece, Asma and her family made the trip to Athens where they were promptly placed into a migrant centre and again had to endure decrepit conditions in which they were cramped in overcrowded spaces where violence ran rampant.

“There were people from all over, from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, all sleeping on the floor together.

“There were many problems in the camp. People would be fighting, some even killing each other, others getting raped. We were very scared.

“One night, I think it was 2am in the morning. I couldn’t sleep and I heard a man crying out. I think he was from Syria, and he had found out that his wife, daughter and son had all died in the water making the crossing from Turkey. He was in so much pain.

“A lot of what I saw in my time there has stuck in my memory. I kept thinking that I need to make something about this. There has to be a reason that I was seeing it all, so I could tell their stories.”

The idea of working in podcasting - or even in media - was never a consideration for Asma, growing up.

“In Iran, they expect you to be a lawyer, solicitor, doctor or at least an engineer,” she says.

“I was trying to be a pharmacist, at least that’s what I was studying for, but I hated everything about hospitals and medicine. I knew that it was not going to be the career for me.”

The family were eventually taken in by a group of Greek anarchists, who were clashing with the Greek state on a nightly basis.

“They were a good thing for us at the time because they took us in and helped us. But they were literally fighting with the police every night, throwing tear gas and we would be crying all night because the gas kept getting in our eyes. I realised quite soon that this was not the life that I wanted.”

Asma made connections with a couple at a church she attended in Athens and made plans to get herself to the UK, whilst her family remained in Greece. She was then able to get a loan to pay a smuggler to get her into the UK.

She was given a passport of another woman and taken to a beauty salon in an attempt to match her look. Asma was then on a flight to Heathrow.

Asma was picked up the UK Border Force on her arrival and sent to live in a hostel in Wakefield by UK Visas and Immigration before moving into a shared house in Halifax with other refugees.

“After six months I went for an interview [with an immigration officer] and I was granted my leave to remain,” she said.

She was studying her English and Maths GCSEs whilst working part-time in a café at Leeds for a number of years whilst she learned and developed her spoken English.

Then one night, she spotted an advert online from Leeds City College for their BTEC Media course.

“I saw this advert that said, ‘Do you want to be a director?’ and I was instantly hooked by it. I applied for the course there and then.

“The course had an Iranian teacher there called Dora who I really connected with. She really pushed me towards my goal and told me that the course was not going to be enough if I wanted to work in the industry. We found the course at Salford, and we applied for it together.

“I came to MediaCity for the open day and felt that I was right where I needed to be.”

Asma arrived on our BA Television and Radio Production course in September 2021, but it wasn’t until her third year at Salford that she opened up to her lecturers about her refugee story.

“The thing about trauma is that there are instances where you find yourself back in the moment, reliving it, and you are just unable to cope and need to have the space to deal with it.

“This would happen during my studies and one day, I told Lyndon [Saunders, Senior Lecturer] that I couldn’t come to the class. The next time we had the same class, after it finished, Lyndon asked if I wanted a chat and asked me how I was.

“I ended up telling him everything. It just all came out, but it was really good to have him listen.

“After that, I wasn’t shy to share my story and felt more confident in my studies and that I could present my story to the world.”

Now the new graduate is looking to put her dreams into action by developing her podcast.

She said: “I’m ready to tell my own story but I need to find others that are happy to share.

“It’s not easy to talk about and I know that many people would struggle but I want to initially release it in Farsi so people may be a bit more comfortable speaking and then to bring in an English language version later on.”

Asma was joined at Graduation by her partner with her family unable to make the ceremony.

The group have all now left Greece with her older brother and mother now settling in France whilst her younger brother, sister and niece are now living in Germany. Asma has resumed contact with her father, who still lives in Iran.

She added: “I really did wish my mum could have been there as she was so supportive of my dream to become a director and tell my story - but I am very proud of myself and all I’ve been able to achieve. It all feels very special.”