Road to Freedom

To everyone reading that may come across this.I'll start of my introducing myself, My name is Chot and some may know me as 75_Meeko from my TikTok live sessions, I’m currently in an immigration detention center in Brisbane. Heres only a fraction of my story.

If im being brutally honestly I did not expect to find myself in this situation where I would be here telling my story to you and it honestly makes me feel a little ashamed because I was raised to always try and handle all my situations myself and when confronted with problems to just deal with them on my own.

When I was a child I heard the news that I would be travelling to Australia and I was extremely excited because it meant that I was entering a whole new world and I would be able to make friends, build relationships and get to start fresh. I wouldn’t say that my childhood was the best due to where I was living, life was very unfortunate and my family and i were surrounded by ongoing war. Us leaving our country was us fighting back for the chance of a better life. The South Sudanese war was common and the expectations of a child joining the war was high.

My journey to Australia as a young child was one that I'll remember deeply for life, the first time I got on a plane, to mistaking sugar for salt, then trying salt and vinegar chips and still to this day for some reason not liking them. This is just a small part of story.

The reason I am here today is simply to reach out for help, which really is something I never seen myself doing or reaching this stage but it is now very crucial for my future. And I am at the point now I am deeply asking for your help and support in any way possible.

Being in a detention center currently I have long been awaiting my time to come to be able to get to a hearing and fight for my residency which is currently on hold at risk of being cancelled. I will explain my reasoning to why I am here currently... I was working full time at the time, head down focusing on the good and one night I had a major car accident which I do take full responsibility for, my passenger who is a childhood friend of mine ended up badly injured. I of course did not run from the accident and stayed with him and proceeded to give him CPR as he was unresponsive and not breathing at the time. This accident led to being sentenced to 3 years as it was my first time in custody, which then led to my visa getting cancelled and afterwards being put into an immigration center. I am very remorseful for the actions and the fact that I had put my childhood friend into this situation.

I’ve been waiting to be given a date for my case to be looked at, and I have only just received that which will be January the 3rd of 2024. Time is not in my favour at the moment though as my lawyer which I have put my full trust in who of course cannot work without pay, has asked that I come up with $10,000 in total. With the amount to be paid in full by the 21st of November. Being here in the detention center I am truly at a loss on how to come up with any form of payment and without this lawyer my case will not be heard. And ultimately, I will have to return back to a country that doesn’t feel like my home to me, ive been here since 5 years old and Australia is home to me, it is really all I know.

I am truely grateful to be in Australia and to call myself an Australian. Whoever this story reaches I would be so appreciating if I could have even, any even small amount of your support at this time in my life.