A story of triumph and success – Majd Aleas
October 22, 2024A story of triumph and success, how one young man overcome extreme adversity to follow his dream of becoming a qualified barber.
Vic Group apprentice, Majd Aleas has successfully completed his barbering apprenticeship and we want to share his story of success.
Majd Aleas was just 11 when his family was forced to fee Iraq.
Majd, who goes by Mak, often shares his life story with his customers as he cuts, clips and shaves their hair.
And more often than not, those customers are left speechless by the story they’re told.
Mak grew up in Mosul, Iraq, and for the most part he remembers a happy childhood. His dad, a businesman, worked hard and the Aleas family lived quite comfortably.
But all of that changed one night when Mak was just 11. Islamic State (ISIS) launched an offensive on his home city in 2013.
Within a week, Mak’s life began to change at a rapid pace.
“They didn’t do anything at first, but after one week, Christians weren’t allowed to do anything-we couldn’t buy food, we couldn’t do anything.” Mak recalls.
“Then one night between midnight and 4am, they drove around the city and over loudspeakers were telling Christians they had until 4am to leave or you would be killed.
They said if you leave you must leave your cars and your money. But everyone was sleeping, not many people heard them say this.
But a friend of my dad’s called and said, ‘You must go, you must move now or they will kill you’. We took our money and our gold, but we left our clothes and everything else behind.”
The family was soon stopped by soldiers, who forced them to get out of their cars and hand over the few things they had with them – including their money. Mak’s uncle had a gun pointed at his head and they forced him to give them his driver’s licence.
After being on foot, the Aleas family found transport to another city. They stayed for five months as they waited for passports, before making the long trip to Turkey in a van packed with fellow Christians forced to flee their country.
“It was so hard because we couldn’t say goodbye to any of our friends, we couldn’t take any photos, we couldn’t take anything with us,” Mak says. “My father had a second house in Iraq which he sold straight away and we used that money to start our new lives in Turkey.”
They had escaped. But they soon began to realise they had left one nightmare for another. Refugees might be legally able to live in Turkey, but they have next to no rights.
So while the threat of ISIS was gone, the Aleas family was facing a whole new set of problems. “When we got there it was cold and snowing. I couldn’t go to school and I couldn’t work because in Turkey, if you are a refugee, you’re not allowed to do those things,” Mak says. “The only work you can do is for cash and you can’t let the government find out you are working because they would kick you out of the country. And if you do work, you get very little money.”
He was just a kid, and couldn’t speak the language, making an already unbearable existence even harder. Unable to go to school meant not making friends. Mak was in a new country, in a new house, and other than his family, he had nothing.
With the encouragement of his father, he decided to find some “unofficial” work and began to walk the streets looking for anything that could lead to a better future.
“After a year our money was running out. My dad found some work with his cousin but they paid him very cheap, so he says to me, ‘Mak, you’re sitting at home not doing anything, why don’t you find a job, be like a man and do some work?” Mak says.
He spent two months with no luck, before finding work in a barber shop cleaning floors and windows. He wasn’t paid, worked up to 15 hours a day (and at a time during Ramadan, 24 hours straight) and would live off the tips customers would give him.
The owner treated him terribly – he was slapped, pushed and yelled at. He was just 12 years old.
“When my boss wanted to clean his store he would send me to walk for 10 minutes to get free water. It was extremely difficult for me as I had to carry heavy containers of water through the snow and I was only 12. My feet would get wet and I was freezing as I completed this job for my boss. My boss would get angry with me at times and pull on my ears and hurt me is he wasn’t happy with the cleaning I was doing. He wouldn’t let me cut many clients hair, he only gave me the customers with head lice because no one else wanted to cut their hair.” Mak said.
“To improve my barbering skills I offered free haircuts to people. I offered to pay people with my own money if they were not happy with the haircut that I gave them. After two years my boss allowed me to cut clients hair but he did not pay me because I was young and because I followed a different religion, I was only given tips. I improved my confidence in shaving beards with a razor by working with an elderly client who was 105 years old. The other barbers didn’t want to shave this customer as his skin was hard to shave. So I worked on with this client and I improved a lot.”
“When I woke up each morning, I felt so bad because I would look at all the kids on the bus going to school, hugging friends, and I couldn’t do those things,” he says. “I was bored and tired and it was cold, I didn’t want to go. But always my daddy would say to me, ‘Mak, just do your best. One day you will become a better person’. He said, ‘nothing is easy in this life, you need to work hard. He would say ‘you’re giving now, one day you get’.
Mak ran out one afternoon after being pushed and hit for failing to sweep some hair up that was under a couch. Mak went on to work in other barber shops, slowly given the chance to gain more experience. As he slowly learned the ropes, Mak would bring kids from the street into the shop to practise — often they had head lice, but he was willing to do whatever it took to improve his skills. By 14, he had finally started charging his clients for haircuts.
His family finally received their papers to move to Australia to be with Mak’s grandfather at aged 16. Mak went to school at Western Heights College in Geelong, whilst working with a local barber in the city. He would rush from school each night to catch a bus to work.
Covid hit and work dried up. But then a chance encounter changed his life. He was given the number to contact Nasir Sobhani, who runs The Streets Barbershop and who Mak now refers to as his “angel”. He laughs about his first impression of his now-boss though, after spending hours writing and rewriting his initial text message.
“I spent so long getting the right words and it was such a long message and then Nas writes back, ‘Hey bro, come to the shop’.” Mak says. From there, Victorian Group Training ensured Mak’s apprenticeship was set in place.
Nasir, known for his philanthropic approach to business and life and taking time out to give free haircuts to those in need, has watched Mak blossom over the past few years. He helps with his English and is doing everything he can to assist Mak with his apprenticeship. He says he’s grateful to the owner of the business, Julie Funari who allows him to hire people based on their hearts, not their skills.
“You can teach skill, you can’t teach heart,” Nasir says “Mak’s very focused and very driven. We know his future is going to be huge. We’ve created a hashtag #futuresbright. You never want to shelter a bird who has been in a cage all its life, we want to empower him.
“Look at his station–‘follow me on Instagram @barbermak I printed that up for him. We’re trying to empower this kid, to the point where now he’s so confident. It’s a beautiful thing”
For Mak, his future is indeed looking bright.
He’s seen the very worst in life but, with the support and love of his family and those around him, he is finally beginning to believe there is good in the world.
“My father has always taught me and my siblings to be our best and be good people,” Mak says. “After working with so many not nice people, I started not wanting to give my heart anymore because I didn’t want to keep getting hurt. But after coming to The Streets I am being the kind of person my dad always wanted me to be. I want to share my story from my heart so it might help other people to never give up, you just have to keep trying.”
Majd has been nominated and become a finalist two years in a row in the Apprenticeship Employment Network (AEN) Annual Awards, and now having achieved his qualification, Majd is keen to continue learning and inspiring others in their career journeys.