Self-employed as a pipe fitter

Ein Mann repariert einen Trinkwasseraufbereiter.

My name is Ahmad. I'm 21 years old and come from Afghanistan, but spent a large part of my childhood in Iran. We only came back to Afghanistan as a family in 2011. Since then, we had always struggled with financial difficulties but now it’s different, partly thanks to help from the Better Makers Social Organization (BMSO).

The BMSO gave me training as a pipe fitter, and now that’s my career. It gives me security, because pipe fitters are always needed, especially in the Afghan construction industry. I also made new friends and connections during the training. We try to support each other wherever we can.

Our family had long ago emigrated to Iran because of the war in Afghanistan. My memories of that time are very vague, though, because I was still very young. What I do remember is that we weren’t really able to improve our living conditions in Iran. We weren’t allowed to start our own business, for example. Despite that, we stayed in Iran for a long time because we felt safer there, and because we were afraid of the war in our home country.

Met some fantastic people

We came back once the situation in Afghanistan had calmed down. Back home, I learned through a friend about what the BMSO has to offer. I decided to learn a trade in addition to my school education.

The training course lasted around 45 days and there were 15 trainees in my group. I met some fantastic people who are like my brothers now. Our biggest challenge at the moment is that we don’t have our own tools. So I asked the director of the BMSO to lend us the organisation’s work equipment until we can afford our own tools.

He agreed, so we were very pleased, and now we’re working with borrowed tools. Just now we’re working on four houses where we’re fitting pipes. We’ll be able to give back these tools and buy our own once the work is finished and we’ve been paid. All we want to do is work: there’s no reason to leave our country when there’s work to do. Because we all hope the war won’t start again.

As of: 12/2020

All we want to do is work: there’s no reason to leave our country when there’s work to do.

Ahmad

Afghanistan

Self-employed as a pipe fitter

Finally standing on my own feet

Finally standing on my own feet

Finally standing on my own feet