Maitland personal trainer Asif Sultani knew what it was like to be an outsider before he travelled here alone by rickety boat as a teenage asylum seeker.
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Sultani is a Hazara - part of a Persian-speaking ethnic group who are persecuted in Afghanistan for simply being who they are.
It's more than enough to create an angry, bitter man. But the kind-hearted, humble Sultani, now 25, is not.
Sultani's story culminated in him being within arms reach of an Olympic dream - but it all began in 1995.
"I was born in a battle of war, because that was the first time when the Taliban invaded Afghanistan," he recalls.
The barbaric regime swiftly began public executions of convicted murderers and adulterers, and amputated people found guilty of theft. But the Taliban had a particular loathing for Sultani's people: in 1996, they declared a jihad on the Shi'a Hazaras and mass killings in northern Afghanistan followed.
When Sultani was 10, his family fled to Iran, spending long stretches quietly walking, mostly during the night to avoid detection.
"When we arrived in Iran, we were persecuted for being asylum seekers as well as [Hazara]. Kids used to bash me, kick me, punch me, humiliate me, spit on me," he says.
Sultani says the hardest part was "hearing them tell me I should just kill myself".
"They'd ask, 'what are you living for? Because you'll never have the same opportunity as us.'"
It was then that Sultani made a defining decision - to learn martial arts. But his lessons abruptly stopped once the instructor learnt he was an asylum seeker.
A tearful Sultani sat down with his father, who calmly led him to a simple truth. "I realised, if only I can create my dream, then only I can crush it," he says.
So Sultani began teaching himself martial arts. When he wasn't training, he was glued to the TV, watching Bruce Lee movies to copy the moves. "He motivated me as a kid, the way he was standing up to the bullies," he says.
In 2012, at age 16, his meagre luck ran out: he was taken to a holding cell in Iran to be forcibly deported back to Afghanistan alone. It was not common practice to deport women, and his father was forced to stayed hidden to avoid a similar fate.
"My mum came to say goodbye to me... it was a tough moment, but she tried to empower me, telling me I was strong enough."
Soon after Sultani left Iran, his father died.
"I wish I had the chance to say goodbye to him, and to say sorry to him, because as a kid I thought it was all his fault that I couldn't have the same opportunity as everyone else," Sultani says. "It wasn't his fault. He did whatever he could to provide a safe environment and life for me."
When Sultani arrived back in Afghanistan, he left for Indonesia. Soon after he arrived there, Sultani, still 16, heard of a boat leaving. So he left his lodging in the dead of the night, hoping to end up in a safe place.
It was awful onboard, he remembers. Over 100 men, women and children were packed onto a tiny boat headed to Australia. Sultani says they were given one boiled egg a day to keep them alive, but people were sick on top of each other from malnourishment and seasickness.
"In the middle of the journey, our boat stopped working for a couple of hours," he recalls. Sultani looked at the ocean and sky around him, the sound of crying and prayer filling into his ears, and thought: "this is where I'm going to die".
"In the middle of the journey, our boat stopped working for a couple of hours," he recalls. Sultani looked at the ocean and sky around him, the sound of crying and prayer filling into his ears, and thought: "this is where I'm going to die".
He says some people had three lifejackets on, while others - like him - had none.
But Sultani says he could not, and still can't, find it within himself to judge those people. "Everyone was just trying to save their own life," he says.
Hours later, the engines sputtered to life. They made it to Christmas Island's detention centre, and he was moved to a Sydney detention centre until he reached age 18.
Sultani was resettled in Maitland with one hope in mind: his first day of school. He had contacted Maitland Grossman High School, pleading with them to take him as a student, though he had never gone to school before and English was his fourth language.
They welcomed him, and it was here that he met his self-described high school sweetheart, Grace, who is now his wife.
"It's the best high school in Australia!" I know, I'm a little bit biased," he laughs.
Sultani says the wider Maitland community welcomed him too, and no one more than Tim Smith, who offered Sultani and, over the years, several other refugees, a home. "He's one-of-a-kind human being and a very kind-hearted man," Sultani says. "He even taught me how to drive with his car, and drove me all the way to Melbourne for martial arts competitions."
Despite the challenges of school, Sultani says he ran 20 kilometres to martial arts practice, often twice a day.
His practice turned into competition and Sultani rose the ranks, winning a state championship, and then a national championship, before finally taking on a qualifier for the Australian Refugee Team headed to the Tokyo Olympics.
He was devastated to not qualify for the team - but characteristic of his humble way, Sultani says it's alright. "Movies show us that everything is end with a happy ending, it doesn't really show the hard work and sacrifices that go in, and how many times actually people fail over and over to get somewhere. And that happening is normal."
Sultani would like to be a motivational speaker, and teach kids that "it's okay to be an asylum seeker... you still have the ability to achieve greatness."
He is also working closely with Australia for UNHCR on fund-raising to help the Afghan people - around half of the population live on less than $1 a day. Sultani says there are 82 million displaced people around the world, including 26 million children.
"I think it's really important for people to understand that, as refugees, we did not choose our lives," he says. "We did not choose to be persecuted, to be separated from our families or friends, or to flee our homeland."
As a Hazara, he says, in many ways he was born an asylum seeker. "I really wanted to prove to myself that I have the same ability as everyone else, regardless of my ethnicity, my background," he says.
He says he never forgot the negative comments he received from those mean kids. "I always wondered if they were right or wrong," he says. "I proved to myself I am right. They were wrong."