23-year-old Badr has a scar that runs from the corner of his eye all the way down to his mouth: a poignant reminder that he was left in a public trash bin to die or be eaten by stray animals.

After the garbage man found him, Badr ended up in an orphanage when he was just three days old, where he lived until he was 18.  By then, he had finished studying mechanical services and it was time for him to leave the orphanage – not because he was forced out, but because he wanted to make space for a new kid.  “I knew that at some point I would have to leave, and it was time for me to step outside and see the world as it is,” says Badr.

Since I left the orphanage five years ago, I have met so many different people – it is like I have seen every shade of every color.  While growing up, life teaches us in a very aggressive way that our past is not something to be shared because people might look down on you, and usually, there is no reason to share it.  The least that they do is whisper behind your back – if not to your face – that you are ebn haram - in Arabic (born of sin),” says Badr with a broken smile as he avoids eye contact.

At the public school that Badr attended, everyone was poor and they never visited each others homes, so he decided there was no point in sharing his story.  “I thought I could just make up a story about my parents and live it.  I knew it was going to backfire sometime because it was a series of lies,” he explains.  “When I got to secondary school, another kid who had a grudge against me realized that we came and went in big groups, so he followed us and learned where we lived. 

The next day, people treated me like I was a different person.  Some pitied me while others looked down on me, and I realized then that I had no real friends.  Even the teachers didn’t try to say anything, everyone just stared while that boy laughed at me and repeated those words [that I was born of sin] in my face, over and over,” says Badr.  He explains that he is sharing his story to make people realize how much words can hurt people who are unjustly judged for things that they have no control over.

Badr explains that finding a job was not that difficult, especially since most employers do not require him to share his personal history.  “Believe it or not, you come to realize that everyone has something in their past to be ashamed of.  The thing is, most of the opportunities that I find are at low-paying jobs.  I wanted to be a policeman, but when they did a background check, they said I wasn’t suitable, even though my medical exams were fine,” says Badr, who, against the advice of his supervisor, applied to the Police Academy.

Today, Badr works at a mechanic shop and has his own apartment.  He visits the orphanage to teach the children mathematics from time to time.  He explains that he only shared his story with his current boss after working with him for three years.  “I trust him and I don’t want to be living a lie that I really had no hand in,” he says.

And while Badr has had it rough, he knows that others have had to endure much worse.  “I am not the only one with a scar; some have had it worse than me.  There are kids who have lost hands or legs, and sometimes I wonder what could make a human being throw away a child. 

In my lifetime, I have never met anyone evil enough to do that.  In the big house [the orphanage], they tried to protect us from the ugly truth by telling us different stories, how we were lost, how our family had died in a car accident, etc. 

After some time, we realized that we all had some version of the same story, and when we put the pieces together we thought: how many accidents can there be?” says Badr.

Please, pray for the orphans in the Middle East and North Africa.