The Bridgebuilder Diaries #4: Zahra — Completing the Puzzle of Belonging

Meet Zahra, one of our incredible Bridgebuilders in Gateshead. A teacher, mentor, and connector, Zahra has been walking alongside refugees and asylum seekers as they begin rebuilding their lives in the UK. With warmth, humour, and a deep understanding born of her own migration journey, she helps people find not just language and learning — but belonging.

“Something very beautiful happens when people feel they have somewhere to hang on — when they find that sense of family again.”

Zahra’s story is one of compassion, patience, and deep commitment to helping others feel at home. Based in Gateshead, she works with refugees and asylum seekers — many of whom arrive in the UK unable to work, study, or even join formal English classes for their first six months.

For Zahra, language isn’t just a tool. It’s the key that unlocks everything: belonging, confidence, and the ability to participate fully in society.

Planting Hope and Language

When Zahra first began her work, many of her classes took place inside local hotels where asylum seekers were temporarily housed. When those closed, she didn’t stop — she adapted, walking alongside St Chad’s and GemArts, continuing to support people on their journey to finding hope in the UK.

Her lived experience — being born in Iran, having lived in Malaysia, and now calling the UK home — gives her a rare empathy. She knows what it means to miss home, to want to belong, and to rebuild a life from scratch.

Completing the Puzzle

Zahra tells stories that show how connection grows in small, human ways.

She recalls meeting a father and son who had just arrived from Afghanistan.

“The boy was only 16, and could already speak seven languages,” she says proudly.

She connected them with other Afghan men, helped the boy enrol in college, and supported the father in accessing the food bank. Later, she bumped into another Afghan boy she’d once helped — an unaccompanied young man — and realised that, piece by piece, the puzzle of connection was coming together.

With support from Foundations Furniture and Hakan, they arranged SIM cards, library memberships, and practical help. Zahra is careful about boundaries and balance — “connections have to be managed,” she says — but the emotional thread of care runs through everything.

“We help them to fit into the network as well as possible. We become that person’s familial support — a dad, a mum, a sister — when theirs are far away.”

From Language to Leadership

Zahra’s classes aren’t only about English. They’re about confidence and agency. She often encourages her students to lead sessions themselves, to find their voice, and to take ownership of their learning.

“I told one of my students, ‘You are me many years ago.’ She was timid at first, but I gave her the chance to teach a topic she was comfortable with. Slowly, she got her confidence back. She wasn’t scared anymore.”

Her students don’t just learn language — they learn courage, purpose, and the belief that they can contribute. Zahra describes how they cry together, laugh together, and end each session with a “squeezy hug.”

“That’s how they connect with me,” she says. “It’s what being human is all about.”

Building a Brighter Neighbourhood

Zahra believes that when people are given a chance, they stop being “outsiders” and start becoming neighbours — people who make the community brighter and stronger.

“Rather than seeing the negatives, we need to see the positives,” she says. “Kindly show people how to do things — help them to be useful and helpful to their community.”

In 2018, Zahra was a support worker at St Chad’s, looking at the world from the classroom window, wondering if she could ever solve the challenges of education and integration. Today, she smiles at how far she’s come:

“I could never have imagined that a year later, I’d be living my dream — supporting young people from refugee families. I’m proud of us. I couldn’t do it by myself. Together with GCB, St Chad’s, and GemArts, we have the power to fly higher.”

The Homework Club — Learning, Fun, and Freedom

Zahra now helps run a youth and homework club, where children and teenagers — many from asylum-seeking families — come to learn English, do their homework, and most importantly, have fun.

“They need to mingle, to play, to dance, to go to the seaside,” she says. “We give them small choices — what activities to do, what music to play — and little by little, they learn they can make decisions for themselves.”

For Zahra, it’s all about creating connections, step by step, until everyone feels they belong.

“When people feel safe, when they’re part of something — that’s when real change happens. That’s when we start to fly.”

✨ A Bridgebuilder in Action
Zahra’s work reminds us that belonging is not built overnight, or through policy alone — it’s built in classrooms, conversations, and acts of kindness repeated every day. Through her, we see what “community bridgebuilding” truly means: creating space where people don’t just survive, but thrive together.