(Zaman Al Wasl)- In a rural part of Berlin, man in a wheelchair approaches the bus door, while the bus driver descends and opens a folded steel platform that lower down to the curb so the wheelchair can roll and be lifted into the bus with respect and dignity.
A task that the refugee Mehdi Ahmed is used to do daily as a bus driver in Germany for months now. Ahmed spent a good amount of time learning the assets of dealing with different types of passengers, including those with special needs.
Mehdi was born in Manbaj, in 1984. He had taken refuge in Germany in July 2015, after his brother was arrested by ISIS, who was later martyred. At the beginning of his years as a refugee he was able to learn German and get a BA, even though his is an illiterate that can not read nor write in his mother language Arabic. As he tells Zaman al-Wasl, after passing, he continued to learn German at home through the Internet.
He was the only one of the 12 students in his class, who received a BA degree despite its difficulty. After a year and four months, Mehdi managed to master the German language and the German politics course. The young man from the rural areas of Aleppo, sat for the test to obtain a private driver license, which was the the license he obtained, and worked with, professionally, for ten years in the Gulf countries. Then he sat for the test to obtain the public driver license. He passed the test, from the first attempt, after a successful vocational training. “Although it is difficult even for the Germans themselves to pass it” he said.
The young driver pointed out, that the public license exam included difficult questions about how to deal with healthy people, the sick, the disabled, the drunken, the perpetrators and the offenders. The work started on 1/8/2018 as an initial experiment. Although the contract was for a month only, he says, he was surprised by an extension of 6 months since the first week by the company's director (Christof Bühler).
Then He obtained an open contract. Whereas any of the drivers need two or more years to obtain it. Ahmed noted that his first motivation to work as a driver in Germany was to dispense with the welfare social assistance provided to refugees, through obtaining a job that he is skilled with.
The staff of the Stadt Ravensburg organization, which is responsible of the refugees, when they learned of his competence and dedication in building for himself an independent future, they continued to consult with him and advised him to submit his papers after the announcement of an internal transport company Bühler, to recruit drivers. The company is considered one of the oldest transport companies in Germany and Europe in general since it was founded 140 years ago.
Mehdi spends 8 to 10 hours a day in the profession, he says he loves "I feel happy and delighted to help people to reach the destinations they wish, and to help people with special needs".
The young refugee pointed out that he deals daily with different types of people, including people suffering mental illness, who need special treatment, as well as with drunkards and alcohol abusers and even people with criminal records, which requires him to be careful in dealing with each of them.
The Syrian refugee driver noted that there are significant differences between the Arab countries and European countries and Germany in particular, when it comes to driving. The roads of Europe are very difficult, especially
in the countryside, in addition to the difficulty of snow and strong winds that sometimes sweep the country. However he says he was able to overcome them through his long experience as a driver and his determination to
succeed in his work.
Zaman Al Wasl
Comments About This Article
Please fill the fields below.