Ali shows how to box clever

Young refugee who fled Pakistan when he was 13, picked as a ‘special’ talent. Nicholas Boyack reports.

It is hard not to be impressed by Ali Ismattullah. The 18 year-old has finished school and is looking forward to studying law and chasing his dream of boxing at the Olympics.

Quietly spoken and articulate, he was a prefect at Naenae College in Wellington and did well academically. You only get a hint that his background is not that of a typical Kiwi lad, when he talks about his life before coming to New Zealand. Born in Afghanistan, his family fled when Ali was

seven, after his father was killed and his mother, Qamar Alijuma, felt the family was no longer safe.

They settled in Quetta, a city in Pakistan that has housed millions of Afghani refugees.

Ali was below the school age in his home country and in Quetta there was no opportunity for him to attend school. Instead, he did odd jobs and stayed in the only safe area where refugees lived and which had a United Nations presence.

After six years the family moved to New Zealand, a country he had never heard of.

‘‘I looked it up on Google and when I saw where it was, I was scared. A small island surrounded by water, I thought ‘where are we going’?’’

The family arrived when Ali was 13 and spent two months in

Auckland before settling in Lower Hutt. For the first time in his life, Ali faced the daunting prospect of going to school and, with his English consisting of little more than a few catchphrases, his first year was hard.

‘He was a very shy boy when he walked in . . . [Now] we love him at the gym and we know he is special.’ BILLY GRAHAM, LEFT