My name’s Trevor. I’m a journalist. This is a picture of me. It’s what the newspaper puts on my reports. My work takes me to many different countries. I travel anywhere there’s news about war or natural disasters, like earthquakes1 and storms. As you can imagine, I’ve seen a lot of terrible things, both here in the UK and abroad. I try not to get upset, but it’s sometimes very hard. I want to tell you about this book. It’s a book about people who have moved from one world to another. That’s why it’s called Two Worlds. Does that sound strange? Yes, I thought so. Let me try to explain a little better. It’s likely that most of us will live all our lives in the country where we were born. We may visit other countries for holidays or even in our jobs for business, but we know that we can go back home anytime we want. Sometimes it’s not our decision to travel abroad, especially when we’re young. Our parents may decide they want to move to a foreign country. We have to go with them, even if we don’t want to. It’s difficult for us to leave our friends behind. But most of us can make new friends easily and the important thing is that we’re with our families. And, when we’re older, we’re free to make our own decisions and go back to our home country if we want to. In fact, when we’re older we can choose to go to any country
we want. We can go abroad for our holidays. We may even decide to study or work in another country for a while. We can choose to stay there for a long time, or even forever. We’re lucky to have that choice. There are some people, however, who have no choice at all. They have to move from their countries. Some have lost their homes. Some have lost their families. Some have to leave because of war. Some have to leave because of natural disasters. Some have paid people lots of money to travel to another country for a better life but found a much worse one instead. There are so many reasons why people have to move from one world to another. They move from somewhere they feel at home to somewhere they feel they don’t belong. They leave behind friends and loving families, and move to a land full of strangers. In other words, they move from a world they know very well to one they don’t know at all: two worlds. We may see pictures of some of these people on the television or read about them in newspapers. We may feel shocked2 or sad – but mainly thankful that it isn’t happening to us. So we turn off the television or put down the newspaper and just continue our lives as usual. But we should remember that the unfortunate people we see on the television or read about in the newspapers are real people. They’re ordinary people, just like you and me – ordinary people in extraordinary situations. I’ve met some of them and seen how they’ve suffered. I report their stories on the television and write about them in newspapers. The news reports usually talk about thousands of people affected by war and millions of refugees3. And the television shows pictures of crowds of people escaping from terrible disasters. So it’s not surprising that we can’t see the separate people among the crowds, is it? It’s too difficult to imagine. There are so many of these people, all with different stories. That’s why I thought it was time I shared some of these stories. I want to show the real characters behind the television pictures and newspaper reports and to allow their voices to be heard. And it’s my hope that the readers of this book will remember these characters the next time they are watching or reading a news report. We should remember them and realise how lucky we are. Two Worlds tells the stories of three young people: a schoolgirl, a footballer and a university student. Each of their stories is told in three parts: World One first introduces you to the character in their home country; the second is a news report – it’s where I first meet these young people and discuss their problems or why they had to leave their homes; World Two shows them trying to get used to their new situations. As you’ll see, they all had different reasons for leaving their home country. They took
different journeys to get to the UK and had different experiences when they reached here. But some things were the same for all of them. They all experienced huge changes in their lives and had to face big problems. However, their stories also show that we human beings can be strong and that, with love and the right support4, small steps can be taken towards a better world. You’ll read a little more about that in the final chapter of this book. I have called it ‘A World of Opportunities’. Well, that’s enough from me for now. I’ll leave you to read the stories. Thank you for choosing this book. It shows you are interested in other people. That’s a good sign. I hope it gives you lots to think about and discuss with your friends and families.