29 Ikram

Ikram. 27 years old. Afghan. | Ikram is building a station near Nanterre in the Paris suburbs. He works for a large construction company. In his team, “there are only blue eyes, everyone comes from France.” “My colleagues are good people. Where I work, the atmosphere couldn’t be nicer.” But for Ikram, “the hardest thing is to get up every day at 4.30 a.m.” to get to his site. After traveling for “two months, all with his feet,” from Afghanistan to France, the young man slept in the streets of Paris and then in a migrant accommodation center. After getting refugee status, he was selected to participate in an apprenticeship training program with Geiq*. Ikram has agreed to become a workman, yet he dreams of studying. “But my language is different from that of the university… I have to learn the language and then study.” His girlfriend, Siam, helps him master French when they go out, to the Eiffel Tower or the Champs-Elysées: “When I have trouble understanding, she speaks with words but also with her hands!” he says, admiringly. *The Geiq is a group of companies which aim to promote the inclusion of people who find themselves outside the labor market. | Résidence pour étudiants, Bry-sur-Marne, France. 2019.