From Loss to Hope: Kharim’s New Beginning in Belgrade

Kharim grew up too soon.

As a child, he lost his father. Soon after, he lost his mother, too. He was left with his brother and his sister and with the feeling that there was no space to give up.

“I understood that I had to take care of them. Even today, they look at me as if I were their father,” he says.

In Burundi, Kharim finished secondary school in electrical engineering and he had good grades. He enrolled at university. His dream was clear. He wanted to become an engineer. But life became unsafe and his family’s needs could not wait. He had to find a job, secure the basic family needs and survive.

That is when photography became his way forward.

He started learning, step by step, through work with local photo studios. Soon, he realised that a camera could be both a job and a voice. After a few years, he opened his own studio in Burundi. It was a moment when he felt he was building something of his own again.

Then the insecurity returned.

Due of circumstances connected to his work and because he feared for his safety, Kharim had to leave Burundi in 2022. He arrived in Serbia completely alone. “I did not know anyone. I did not speak the language. Everything was new to me,” he says.

At first, Belgrade felt unfamiliar and overwhelming. The streets, the people and the rules. Everything took time. But Kharim decided not to stop. He learned the language every day. Step by step. Word by word. Within a year, he was already speaking with people. Asking questions. Understanding more. Feeling less like a stranger.

Today, he says Belgrade feels like a second home.

A camera that became a second chance

UNHCR heard Kharim’s story and, along with other services, supported him with a camera. For someone who had built his life through a lens, it was not just an object. It was a sign that he was not alone.

“It was not only a camera. It was a second chance,” he says.

Today, Kharim photographs Belgrade as he sees it. With attention to small things. To faces. To moments that pass quickly. He says he wants to show differences, emotions and character. He wants photography to connect people and stories.

Returning to a childhood dream

Even when photography helped him through the hardest periods, Kharim never forgot his first dream. To become an engineer. In Serbia, he felt again that this dream might not be lost forever.

The path back to education was not easy. He had to validate his documents. He had to prepare for the entrance exam. He had to study in a language that was new to him. He had to learn both the subject matter and the words he needed to understand lectures.

He made it.

Today, he is a student at the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, studying New Energy and Technology. He is a recipient of the DAFI scholarship. He completed his first year in June 2025. “What I wanted as a child was to become an engineer and this is my chance,” he says.

Home is where hope grows

Kharim does not speak about the future in big plans. He speaks about small wins that add up. A language he speaks more easily today than yesterday. An exam he passed. Photography that calms him. The feeling that he can be more than what he has been through.

“Today, I have hope,” he says. “And I know tomorrow can be better.”

That is why he also says this. “Serbia is my mother. Because every place that gives you hope becomes your home.”

In Serbia, UNHCR and partners support asylum seekers and refugees through language learning, education and access to opportunities that restore a sense of dignity. When someone is given a chance to learn, work and belong, even the hardest beginning can become a new life.

© UNHCR