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Austria. Marianne Grasl, Rolf Nagel and Leo Grasl (18) host Somali refugee Leyla Mahamud and her baby boy Zacharia who was born 29 April 2016, a few weeks after she moved in. Vienna. This portrait is part of the No Stranger Place series, which portrays lo

Marianne Grasl, Rolf Nagel and Leo Grasl (18) host Somali refugee Leyla Mahamud and her baby boy Zacharia who was born April 29, 2016, a few weeks after she moved in, in Vienna, Austria.

Marianne, a primary school teacher, wanted to offer her empty room to a refugee but she wasn’t sure she could handle living with a newborn baby.

“At first I wasn’t sure I could live with a crying baby but it worked out. He rarely cries and when he does it’s so quietly, Laila calms him down immediately,” Marianne says. “Now, if he cries I take him. I love having them here.”

Marianne’s partner, Rolf, is an electrical engineer who volunteers by teaching German language classes to refugees a couple of times a week.

“I supported Marianne from the beginning with this decision. Take in a refugee into your home to verify if it’s true or not what is written in the media. I want to have direct contact with them and see and discover their world. I want to find out how they are on my own. I believe that why they came here, whatever they fled from, must have been really bad,” said Rolf.

Laila left Mogadishu in 2009 after she got entangled in a complicated web of honour killings. When she refused to marry a man her family arranged for her, she ran away and married someone else. Her family killed her new husband and then his family sought to kill her in revenge. They kidnapped her daughter and locked Laila up, but she escaped and fled to Saudi Arabia, then Turkey, then Vienna in March 2015.

” I was so scared when I first came here,” Laila says, “but they are so good to me.” She is trying to learn the language so she can start working.

Marianne Grasl, Rolf Nagel and Leo Grasl (18) host Somali refugee Leyla Mahamud and her baby boy Zacharia who was born April 29, 2016, a few weeks after she moved in, in Vienna, Austria. Marianne, a primary school teacher, wanted to offer her empty room to a refugee but she wasn't sure she could handle living with a newborn baby. "At first I wasn't sure I could live with a crying baby but it worked out. He rarely cries and when he does it's so quietly, Laila calms him down immediately," Marianne says. "Now, if he cries I take him. I love having them here." Marianne's partner, Rolf, is an electrical engineer who volunteers by teaching German language classes to refugees a couple of times a week. "I supported Marianne from the beginning with this decision. Take in a refugee into your home to verify if it's true or not what is written in the media. I want to have direct contact with them and see and discover their world. I want to find out how they are on my own. I believe that why they came here, whatever they fled from, must have been really bad," said Rolf. Laila left Mogadishu in 2009 after she got entangled in a complicated web of honour killings. When she refused to marry a man her family arranged for her, she ran away and married someone else. Her family killed her new husband and then his family sought to kill her in revenge. They kidnapped her daughter and locked Laila up, but she escaped and fled to Saudi Arabia, then Turkey, then Vienna in March 2015. " I was so scared when I first came here," Laila says, "but they are so good to me." She is trying to learn the language so she can start working.

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  • Marianne Grasl, Rolf Nagel and Leo Grasl (18) host Somali refugee Leyla Mahamud and her baby boy Zacharia who was born April 29, 2016, a few weeks after she moved in, in Vienna, Austria. Marianne, a primary school teacher, wanted to offer her empty room to a refugee but she wasn't sure she could handle living with a newborn baby. "At first I wasn't sure I could live with a crying baby but it worked out. He rarely cries and when he does it's so quietly, Laila calms him down immediately," Marianne says. "Now, if he cries I take him. I love having them here." Marianne's partner, Rolf, is an electrical engineer who volunteers by teaching German language classes to refugees a couple of times a week. "I supported Marianne from the beginning with this decision. Take in a refugee into your home to verify if it's true or not what is written in the media. I want to have direct contact with them and see and discover their world. I want to find out how they are on my own. I believe that why they came here, whatever they fled from, must have been really bad," said Rolf. Laila left Mogadishu in 2009 after she got entangled in a complicated web of honour killings. When she refused to marry a man her family arranged for her, she ran away and married someone else. Her family killed her new husband and then his family sought to kill her in revenge. They kidnapped her daughter and locked Laila up, but she escaped and fled to Saudi Arabia, then Turkey, then Vienna in March 2015. " I was so scared when I first came here," Laila says, "but they are so good to me." She is trying to learn the language so she can start working.
  • Photo: Lucien hosts Hussam, a refugee from Syria, in Lyon, France.
  • Susanne (52) and Stefan (47) host Fady (35), a Christian refugee from Egypt, in Nikolassee, Germany. When their children moved out, Susanne and Stefan decided they wanted to help by giving one of the spare rooms to a refugee, but didn't know how to go about it. Then they received a newsletter from their local church, which was trying to find families in the area to host newly arrived refugees. Through the church they met Fady, a Christian refugee from Egypt who'd fled religious persecution. They got along well and he moved in with them in August 2015. While he waited for his papers to arrive, he couldn't work, so he used the time to learn German, which he now speaks very well. And it's already paying dividends. In March he starts work as a coach and supervisor to Arabic-speaking refugees at a school for professional development in Berlin. And he's also on the verge of moving into his own home, a small flat Susanne and Stefan own in Reinickendorf and that luckily, their previous tenant has just moved out of. When Susanne and Stefan's children were still small their landlord decided to sell the building that houses their apartment, so Stefan and Susanne found four likeminded families, also with young children, to club together and buy it. Today, the same four families still live there, providing a stable community in which Fady was quickly integrated. But at first, Stefan says, “people where a little surprised that we would give our keys to a stranger.” Although he didn't like the city at first, Fady says “I love Berlin now”. Now he has friends and knows the city, he appreciates how multicultural it is. Although this was initially difficult for him, due to his negative experiences in Egypt, he now counts many Muslims amongst his friends. Fady has also found a home in the congregation of the local Syrian Orthodox church and is an active member of the recently founded “Begegnungschor”, a choir in which locals and refugees learn and perform songs from
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