I was 9 years old when I moved from Italy to England. My parents always used to and still say that it is to have a better future, just like any previous migrant parent would say to their child. I didn’t speak English as much when I came, but I learnt the language and accent in a year purely from surroundings (People wouldn’t believe I came from Italy because of how English I sound but that just shows that I am amazing). 7 years later, here I am thriving as a British citizen.

Oladunni Nwokocha began her journey in Nigeria, the place she still calls home no matter where life takes her. When her husband received a job opportunity in the UK, she relocated — first to London, then later to Doncaster.

We were not trying to run or away from home or rather JAPA. We simply wanted a family vacation to Cyprus but made a huge blunder. We assumed that we could go using our American visas because it was accepted before but the rule had changed. You could only get in with Cypriot visas. What was meant to be a short stopover quietly turned into exclusion. We slept on airport benches for three days and survived on chicken nuggets cause the airport hotels would have made us broke in a place where google translate became our most used app. We were stranded by a system that did not recognize us as people, only as documents.