Just two years ago, Sayed Ahmad Shah Sadaat’s life was very different. This engineer with degrees in telecommunications and electronic engineering from the University of Oxford came to occupy one of the most important positions in Afghanistan .
As Minister of Communications in the Ashraf Ghani government, Sadaat negotiated with China or India the launch of satellites, as well as the improvement of mobile networks in Afghanistan. Two years after leaving his post as minister, Sadaat works as a ‘rider’ in the German city of Leipzig , delivering food at home on a bicycle.
“I have nothing to feel guilty about,” this 49-year-old Afghan-British citizen told Reuters , who at the end of 2020 decided to leave everything behind in Afghanistan fearing that one day the Taliban could arrive , as has finally happened.
For this reason, upon arrival in Germany he applied for asylum so that, as a refugee, he could start working whatever it was. “Everyone has to pay rent, eat, I could have been a corrupt minister, stole millions of dollars, bought buildings here or in Dubai and not need to work, that’s why I am very proud and have a clear conscience “, has indicated.
Although he was able to go to the UK due to his dual citizenship, he eventually chose Germany as his destination, hoping to find a job related to his field of study, telecommunications . However, as he did not speak German, his chances of finding a job in this field were wiped out.
“The language is the most important part,” said Sadaat, who studies four hours of German every day at a language school before starting his shift at Lieferando, where he started working this summer.
About his first days as a deliveryman, Sadaat recalls that “they were exciting, but difficult “, since it was a challenge for him to learn to move around the city by bicycle. However, he has managed to get the positive part out of it: “The more you go out and the more people you see, the more you learn,” he said.
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Wow! Danke für 1,5 Mio impressions 😍 Ich habe heute mit #Sadaat gesprochen. Er erzählte mir, dass er heute morgen Post bekommen hat: Ein @lieferando Manager will ihn kennenlernen. Sie bieten ihm eine Stelle in der Unternehmenskommunikation an ➡️ @LVZ https://t.co/NnVBpbdBEY
– Josa Mania-Schlegel (@JosaMania) August 23, 2021
“To advance in life, you have to work. I am not ashamed of my job and I do not feel inferior . I do not think that Afghans are ashamed of having a former minister working, but they would if he received social money,” he said in another interview with the local newspaper Leipzig Volkszeitung .
