Ahmed was born in Saudi Arabia, into the Royal Family Lahej (Lahej Sultanet).

His parents were born in Aden, which was a British colony at the time, and they had British protected passports. In 1967, however, his family had to flee and settled in Saudi Arabia as diplomats / refugees, where they were known as ‘the guests of the King’. However, despite the family still holding their passports and colony birth certificates, they lost their status, becoming stateless and without rights. Ahmed grew up with no access to government medication, but was able to study by permission of the king.

In 2005, Ahmed started working in the packaging section of a warehouse and was promoted within 4 months to team leader. In just another 5 months he was transferred to the call centre, a further 6 months saw him as a call centre team leader, and in 2010 he was the senior supervisor of the call centre.

One day in 2016, Ahmed and his family were warned that they would be losing their IDs unless they could find a home country. His bank accounts were shut down, he was stopped from driving, his Saudi travel documents were removed and he was forced to pay taxes with no rights or pensions earned.

Ahmed already know what UK was like as he had spent many a childhood holiday here visiting family. He liked the freedom of the UK and therefore chose to seek asylum here.

Since receiving his status, he has had many ideas for projects; even in the face of adversity, he is motivated towards success and not afraid to take a leap to do something he wants to. While in Saudi he had been stripped of his rights, since coming to the UK he feels he can achieve success.

Ahmed says he is ‘happy, wonderful and satisfied’.

Ahmed now has a job working with asylum seekers and refugees, which he loves. He is working in a job he feels passionately about and, in fact, originally volunteered in the same role. He has many hope and ideas for the future and hopes to get married one day.