![](https://www.servicespace.org/images/dist/2021/4158/871x497.jpg)
As a child, Dr. Waheed Arian fled Afghanistan and ended up in a refugee camp in Pakistan. At 15, he arrived illegally in Britain -- alone. Then he got a place at Cambridge University to study medicine. Now 37, he's the brain behind a charity providing phone consultations to the sick in war zones. Out of his traumatic childhood, he has formed deep compassion and insight into the plight of refugees. It's heartbreaking. I still look at people crossing the Channel or the Mediterranean and think, 'Who have you left behind? You have walked away from everything you ever worked for. Are your homes still standing?' Arian said. He insists that the most important lesson to learn is that life is not what happens to you but how you respond to it.
More: