From There To Here
Yaser Naseri · 91 min
Yaser Naseri survived a deadly boat disaster that killed over 200 people, multiple detention escapes, and years of stateless limbo — and emerged with a philosophy of resilience that challenges every listener to reframe their own struggles.
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In 2009, Yaser Naseri attended a protest in Tehran against Iran's government. He was young, passionate, and wanted to speak up about injustice. The regime's response was swift and brutal. Friends were arrested. One close friend was shot and died in hospital weeks later. Yaser knew that staying meant risking arrest or worse. With another friend, he packed and left, heading to Indonesia with almost no plan and no money.
What followed was a series of attempts to reach safety that tested him in ways he could not have imagined. Four failed boat attempts. An escape over an immigration checkpoint wall into farmland with nothing but instinct guiding him. Then the fifth attempt: a boat carrying 250 people that capsized in 10-meter waves. Yaser found himself in the ocean, swimming toward an overturned hull, watching waves rotate the vessel and people lose their grip. A fisherman rescued only 34 of the 80 clinging to the wreck. The rest were never found. Of roughly 250 people on that boat, only 47 survived.
After rescue came detention, locked in a room with 16 others, no yard access, people losing hope beside him. Yaser escaped and registered with UNHCR, then spent three years in Jakarta on almost nothing, surviving on charity, learning languages, building friendships that changed how he understood what mattered. When he finally reached Australia, he carried something that could not be taken from him: a clarity about what he could control and what he could not. Today, he works full-time, has built a life in Sydney, and rarely complains. Not because the hard things stopped happening. Because he knows the difference between a problem and a genuine catastrophe, and he chooses to act on what is in his power.
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