Dear Dad
Essay by Isobel Ferrara

Essay Writing Competition 2025
Category: 12-15 years
- Commendation -

Senior category: Commendation

Dear Dad - Essay by Isobel Ferrara

Dear Dad

11 September 2025

Dear dad, I don’t know if from where you are now you will ever read those letters that I’m sending to you, but I’ll continue writing them to you…I don’t know why… maybe because it does good to me. It’s nice to have someone to talk to and to vent. Especially when you’re moved to another country and you don’t have someone to talk to. Tomorrow I’ll start the seventh grade in a new school in Italy. I didn’t sleep a wink last night, everything here sounds so familiar but also so far from Yemen I felt uncomfortable in the bed because it wasn’t my bed! I didn’t unpack my bags, I’m not ready to call this place my home, I’m not ready to call this bedroom my bedroom. The facade of our new palace is totally ruined by the humidity, it’s bare… just like my life here, without you, I want to come back home, I want to see you again, I want to hug you again and this time I wanna never ever leave you! I love you alibaba, and I miss you so much! One day, we will be together again, when the war ends and in the battlefields the flowers will blossom! Your little princess Salma

12 September 2025 6:54 a.m

Dear dad, this morning when I woke up, I was so excited for my first day in the new school but…I was also nervous. What if my new classmates were just like the one I met in France? Oh… I don’t want what happened to me to happen again, I don't know why they were so evil to me but…when I looked at myself in the mirror, I saw the "problem" on my cover… the blue one that you bought me the last time we went together to the mosque… I was thinking… that if I didn’t wear that today, maybe I’d look normal… if I don’t wear it, I think l wouldn't be myself! please ’baba forgive me but I didn’t wear it today, I’m so sorry but when I picked it up I remembered when my former classmates pushed me to the ground and snatched it away from me, I was so embarrassed that I ran away. I’m sorry that I didn’t stand up for myself, I’m not like you, you are fighting a war for my future, you’re so brave… I,on the other hand I’m so weak! Please alibaba, help me to become stronger and resilient so, when a violent wind will try to break me, I will resist, that’s a promise baba. Your lil girl Salma

12 September 5:17 p.m

Dear dad, I just got home from school, it went well. The teacher announced me to the class, not like the one in France, who made me write my name on the whiteboard and, when I wrote it in Arabic, she complained and made me rewrite it one hundred and ten times on my notebook, the Italian one seemed happy to have me in her class, as if I were…a common girl …as if my skin wasn’t a different colour, darker than the other kids …as if I didn’t come from a country where they didn’t know if it would be tomorrow… Well, she didn’t look at me with pity, just with enthusiasm. My new classmates didn’t even notice my presence, only a girl I sat next to asked me how to write my name in Arabic, next she asked me to teach her swear words, don’t worry dad, I didn’t tell her, I teach her to say "salam" ,peace, I’m sorry to lied to her, but in this world we need more peace words than words of war. Later we had a Catholic religion class. The teacher came in and a boy that was sitting three rows behind me, stood up and left the room without saying “hello”, he didn’t look the teacher in the eyes, he just ran out. I thought he went to the bathroom, but no, he didn’t come back to class for the whole hour. I asked my desk mate why and she said that his name was Davide and he left the class because he was Jewish… as if listening to a lesson could change your religion. At a certain point I felt the need to go to the bathroom, I asked the teacher and then I left the room, only… I had no idea where the bathrooms were! I started wandering around the school, telling myself to hurry up, then I heard some voices, finally, someone who can give me directions. There were five kids at the vending machine and among them… Davide, I approached, but they looked at me askance, they called me with names that weren’t very nice, behind them, Davide didn’t say a word, he was looking at the floor, then a more authoritative voice: a professor, had come out from a classroom attracted by the noise, she scolded them, then she looked at me and with a soft voice she asked me what I was searching for I answered the bathroom, she accompanied me, I felt so stupid…as soon, I entered the room I advanced until I reached a free cubicle, I had to pass in front a row of mirrors,I had to pass in front of a row of mirrors, I couldn't look at myself, my hair was loose down my shoulders, I had never seen myself like this, then I thought about it again, this morning when I decided not to wear the veil, maybe they had accepted me only because I was similar to them? Because I had stayed for religion class? Will I be forced to pretend I’m not Muslim just to please people? Salma

In the Age category 12 - 15 years, Isobel's essay celebrates resilience, hope and strength. Thank you for your heartfelt story! Well done! Congratulations!

Isobel is 13 years old and attends Istituto Pavoni in Tradate/ Italy. English as second language. Italian as first language