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My commitment to refugees comes from a very personal place.

I am the face of a refugee. I was once a refugee. I was with my family in exile.

The city has become a serious menace to our civilization... It has a peculiar attraction for the immigrant.

The hardship of living in a refugee camp made me psychologically strong.

I come from a family of refugees. I'm used to surviving and going with the flow, and what happened to me was just life.

I am so impressed by UNHCR staff who live and work side by side with the refugees. It's really remarkable.

Once a refugee, always a refugee. I can't ever remember not being all right wherever I was, but you don't give your whole allegiance to a place or want to be entirely identified with the society you're living in.

Refugees are the human dimensions of a failed state.

I love new cities, and if I haven't travelled for a month, the need to go somewhere starts to gets under my skin.

After I graduated in Vancouver, I had been working on a book about war-affected children and land mines with the foreign minister - he was working at a place on campus and hired me. I then got a job as a Human Rights and Refugees Officer in London, and I loved working there.