Mohamed Semra

The same committee that's leading this youth forum.

So it was a full circle moment.

And being able to share that with the young people and let them know that I once sat where you are.

And now I'm the mayor of the city of Melbourne.

So the thing that's resonated with them and it's left them with a bit of inspiration.

It feels surreal.

Going into spaces and being the only person that looks like me can be daunting.

But what makes me feel happy and convinced that I'm on the right path is when I meet young people, when I meet other Muslims, other migrant refugees, and hearing that me being there is inspiring them to pursue a similar pathway.

Politics, as you can imagine, is super inaccessible.

Being young, Muslim, and African, and a visibly person of color, that's the three biggest barriers into politics.

And so it hasn't been easy, but leadership is about making it easier for the person that comes after you.

And that's definitely my standard of leadership and makes it easier.

So in 2006-7, it was my first time going back to Sudan after arriving here as a refugee with my family.

I would have been around eight, eight years old.

So going back, my family belongs to a tribe called the Hadandawa.

And my smaller family is part of a branch called the Sabarandawab.

And we are herders.

We're village people and we're very simple people.

And so we live in the eastern desert.

bordering Eritrea and so I spent three months there with my family and I remember my uncle one day he told me to go get water from the well and the well was two hours from where we were and he told me get on the donkey here's the barrels of water and the donkey will take you there and