Video 2 Reflections

When Mukhles knocked on Kourosh’s door one cold evening several months ago, he didn’t know if the person answering would speak his language, would share his culture or his religion. All he knew was that the person would be a refugee just like him – another human being in the same situation he had been in a few years back. At that time some people from Geelong helped Mukhles. Now it was his turn to help.

The ability to have empathy, to feel with another human being, even if we have not yet met them, is in all of us.

Can you reflect on a situation in your life where you have felt a strong sense of connection and empathy with someone, or even a group of people, even so you had not met them?

As it turns out, the two men needed to communicate in English which is a second language for both of them and not always easy. Yet it is clear from watching them that they have a bond that goes beyond words.

Mukhles knocked on the door when Kourosh and his family would have been scared, worried and lonely. He was there to show them how to turn on the oven, that to switch on the electricity you need to flick that little switch on the power point. He would have explained those small things that matter so much when you don't know how to do them.

Can you think back to a time when you were feeling vulnerable, maybe a bit lost and a bit scared and there was someone who did something, maybe something small, but something that made you just a little less scared and a little bit more hopeful? What did the person actually do?

And there is something else happening here. Mukhles says he and the organisation he set up are doing this for refugees because initially some people from Geelong did it for him. Kourosh says now he is also doing it for others. This is a great example of ‘paying it forward’, of doing something for someone else and not expecting anything in return.

Mukhles says: “People, when they do small things, these small things can make a big impact. So everyone, if everyone does small things and basic things, that maybe changes life of others – maybe saves life of others”

What small, basic thing could you do to welcome someone and maybe change their life?

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