"What I dream about is for a safer place for queers in Morocco,” says Mamakil (pseud, 28). “I want to live long enough to see it happen.” In 2017, Mamakil fled to Europe, and is now a refugee in Amsterdam. “I wanted to feel good and safe,” she says of fleeing. “It is criminalized, our identities and our existence as queers and trans in Morocco, and that in itself is a danger.” Leaving was “very hard” for Mamakil. She arrived in the Netherlands “with nothing”. “I am very dissociative when it comes to feeling at home, because I am still attached to Morocco.” “Imagine having to leave everything you've worked for, people you love, and your goals behind you,” she says of her experience as a refugee, though this has made her “stronger and wiser”. She is now an activist and a DJ, and has a “really great support system”: “I love my friends, my community and my chosen family; they've been really supportive.” But her dream remains the same: “to see my community striving and thriving in Morocco.”

Courtesy: 1000dreams.com