Humans of Portsmouth - Anwar's Story

I was born in Ghana, Accra. Accra means a lot to me because I was born there. I was raised there. It is a beautiful place, especially since it is the capital of Ghana.

I moved to the UK when I was six years old. I moved to Southampton, of all places - Raven. It  was a pretty racist area, and I experienced a lot of racism, so my mom decided to move to Millbrook. I love Millbrook. All of my mates that I met in Millbrook, I still talk to now. When I was 20, I wanted something new, a new challenge.I was like - should I go to university? I was on the fence but then I was like: you know what? Screw it, I'll go to university. So I decided to go to Portsmouth.

I feel like the UK is now home - I've been here literally most of my life. I've met so many people, have loads of friends down here, and it's given me a lot of opportunities. 

My happiest is when I am out of base - I’m a really sociable person. I hate being at home doing nothing. I like to be busy. When I am out, socialising with people, is when I am at my happiest. But I am also really introverted - I do like it when I’m at home. Yes, I like being both introverted and extroverted. Being at home by myself is pretty fun but also being out… It depends on my mood! It depends on the day, week and time. But overall, I would say I'm more introverted than extroverted. 

At first, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to become a police officer or not. I did for a year, but I hated it. The things that I saw, I know that’s not what I want to do for most of my life.

Instead, I want to become a politician. This job [as Democracy & Campaigns Officer] has actually helped me decide that I want to be more involved in politics. I've done a lot to try and get into politics. I've joined the Labor Party in Southampton - I'm the BAME officer for labor in Southampton. And hopefully, after that, I think I can become a counsellor in my ward of Millbrook after I finish with this job.

When I first started, I was like: I hate politics. I hate politics. I hate politics. Then I go to this job, and the whole job is literally just politics. This experience really called out to me. Now I'm like - do I want to do this with a whole city? Yeah, yes! I can make a massive difference if I become a counselor, or if I become an MP.

I say my proudest moment was actually getting into university. Back in secondary and primary school, I was the kid that was predicted E's, D's and F's. My GCSE predicted grades were very low and so it was expected of me to fail my GCSEs. But suddenly I got out of secondary school with 4 GCSEs, and so I got into college. In college, I got distinction in all of my courses and that’s how I got into University. I was not expected to get into university at all, but I did. As a kid, seeing this gave me the motivation to prove everyone wrong, and I did.

[Who means the most to you?] My mom. My mom has been there since I was a kid. I've been through a lot. Through my depression - she was there. She supported me moving to university - she was there supporting me every step of the way. She's helped me a lot throughout my years. I feel like she does mean a lot to me, especially now that my dad is not alive anymore, she’s the only parent I have. My mom moved to the UK because she wanted to become a nurse.She loves being nice, and she loves what she does. 

[What was your favourite time in Portsmouth?] The Election night on my second run, was one of the best experiences of my life. After campaigning for three weeks, with all the stress and feeling like: Oh, I'm not gonna win, I'm not gonna win, having your name mentioned on stage was one of the best experiences. Realising that I am going to be here for another year… It felt like the work had paid off. I was motivated to run again because I felt like I had unfinished business.

Two years ago, I started with extreme depression, and it was a really tough time for me. I dropped out of university. Had to suspend the year because I just could not focus on my education. 

It was a lot of different factors [that caused the depression]. During that time, I lost my dad, then I lost both of my grandparents, and I also had a dissertation to do. Everything came in at once and I just couldn’t. I had a lot of  different symptoms of depression and anxiety. I had to call the ambulance twice because I was having extreme panic attacks. And during that time I was also running for elections but I was in bed and I could just not do anything. But somehow I got through it.

The first time I experienced this, I didn’t even know what was happening. I thought my heart was messed up. During my first panic attack, I was like: what’s this? I felt like I was going to have a heart attack - I couldn’t breathe, my heart was pounding. I thought I was having a heart attack. When the ambulance told me I was having a panic attack, I was literally like: what’s that? Very, very scary. Especially because of how random panic attacks are. It could happen at 2 o’clock at night where suddenly my heart starts pounding and I start panicking, thinking: what’s happening to my heart? Now that I know what a panic attack is, I know how to calm myself down. But back then, I was always thinking that there was something wrong with me.

The people that really helped me with steps to well-being were from a counselling service at Southampton. They gave me CBT sessions, and that really helped me try to navigate the situation and try to overcome the depression. After doing it for a year, I slowly started becoming better over time - and now back to normal. 

[What would you like to tell yourself back then?] It will end. It’s only a short period of time. It will end. 

What I'm going to do after this job - that's my biggest fear. I kind of know, but it's not set in stone yet. I have a lot of different things I want to do. I applied to become a test score manager and I also have the counselor role. But it's still scary, because I don't know what I'm doing and it’s slowly coming up.

One piece of advice I always tell people is that when you fail, just pick yourself up and try again. Everyone fails. I failed multiple times - my first election I lost, and look at me now. I failed multiple times during becoming a committee member for societies - I didn’t win my election but I tried again and then I won. And now I'm the president of criminology. If you fail, just do it again until you succeed. This is something I had to learn because I hate failing. I hate failing. But over time, failing is like a progression to something better. It's part of life.

After university, you're going to apply to a lot of jobs and you might not get them. But then, you have to pick yourself up and apply for more jobs. Finally, at the end of the process, you will get a job. 

[Advice to the next officer] I say just push yourself to try to achieve certain things. You can't achieve stuff if you don't go out there and take it. This job is all about talking to students, trying to get their feedback. It's all about having that student perspective and you can’t get that from sitting behind your desk.