There was a point where there was nowhere to park and nowhere to sit, as people flocked to the Ammerdown Centre to listen to the story of inspirational young man, Abdulazez Dukhan, on Monday evening.

Fleeing his home, the war-torn city of Homs, Syria, Abdulazez told the large audience about his journey, which saw him granted asylum in Belgium. Speaking self-taught English and Dutch, the future is bright for Abdulazez, who is going on to study Engineering at University.

Saddened by journalists in refugee camps waiting for tensions to boil over to capture for profit, Abdulazez has been determined to tell his story ever since; bringing a human story back to the heart of the crisis for displaced people around the world.

His story is a remarkable one. His immediate family moved away from the city in 2011, six months after the revolution began in Syria. He describes leaving whilst there were tanks in the streets, moving to the countryside in an attempt to be safe. Here, they had no electricity and no phones. Abdulazez says: “When I asked my father when we would be going home and he replied, “maybe in a week” – I knew then we were never going back.”

They managed until 2014 when the situation deteriorated further. “It was a very hard decision, but we were half dead, half alive. Some days we would spend half a day just trying to find water. It wasn’t safe.”

The family made their way into Turkey. Here, Abdulazez knew he would need “something to spend my energy on” and began to study Art online. He recalls first arriving and being in awe of the fact there was a constant supply of electricity. “You appreciate things so much more when you have lost them,” he says.

But Turkey was not kind to the family and they kept moving in search of a better life; taking the dangerous journey by boat to Greece to land in a refugee camp of around 13,000 people. “It was one of the worst places you have ever seen,” he says. “You would need to plan a visit to the toilet, because it would take up to two hours just to queue.

“I was depressed. I just wanted to study, and there was literally nothing. I began speaking to journalists, and, impressed by my English, they asked if I would work as a translator for them.”

Abdulazez and his family later moved to a smaller camp containing around 3,000 people. Life here was still tough, trying to find enough money to pay for a shower and relying on supplies. He continued practising English, translating for a medical team, writing down words and beginning to tell his story via Facebook. This was picked up, and Abdulazez was donated a small camera to document his experiences.

He began to bring attention to himself in the camp, with some of the press photographers sharing their camera knowledge; their curiosity piqued by this young man.

Abdulazez then received a camera upgrade from a Spanish volunteer, who donated a Nikon D3300 for his birthday, which he used to begin the social media platform, ‘Through Refugee Eyes’, which can be found on Facebook and contains Abdulazez’s work, including his viral video, ‘Letter to Donald’, and one made at Ammerdown this week, which he hopes viewers will share.

Abdulazez and his family left Greece legally, granted asylum in Belgium. “I began learning French in preparation,” he says, “but then we ended up in the Dutch part,” he laughs.

“There are many hundreds of thousands wishing to live a good life with dignity, where they can work and earn money. I discovered in Greece that negativity can do nothing; so I tried to capture smiles instead. There are people there who have nothing, but will still invite you for tea.

“Their voices are stuck in my head.”

Abdulazez told the audience that around 80% of Homs has been destroyed by bombing and that he had heard of people, trying to return, who had been arrested. His grandmother and aunts still live in Syria, but his grandfather was killed last year.

The family have begun to rebuild their lives; Abdulazez will study Engineering at University, his brother has opened a pizza shop in Brussels, and his sister begins work next month. All of the family are trying to learn Dutch, so that they can integrate in to life and work in this new country.

Abdulazez is now on a seven day tour from Scotland to London, as he travels the length and breadth of the country telling his story. Bernard Sullivan, a volunteer for Refugee Action in Somerset East, met the young Syrian in Greece, and it was this unlikely friendship that made the talks become reality. With Bernard’s help, the idea of the tour has come to fruition and has given Abdulazez the chance to show his extraordinary artwork to audiences, too.

Speaking at the event, Bernard said: “I cannot believe how many people are here this evening. This is astonishing.

“My wife and I were part of a large aid convoy which was bringing tonnes of supplies to mainland Greece and some of the islands. As we walked into the camp, a smiling teenager greeted us.

“We kept in touch, and his artwork is now being shared all over the world.

“He is such an inspirational young man that we felt others should meet him.

“Those fleeing torture, starvation and violence is a situation as bad as it has ever been in our history. Government resettlement schemes are ending this year, and nothing meaningful yet exists to replace those. If this could continue, and every Local Authority would take its share, that would be just three children per authority.”

It is thought that there are around 25.4 million refugees in the world; half of these are children, often unaccompanied and alone, at risk of exploitation and trafficking.

Bernard adds: “Every refugee is a real human being.

“To use the word, ‘refugee’ is the first step in dehumanising someone. Eighty years ago, a whole population was being demonised and we must never let that happen again. We must speak out.”