Key Points
- Iraqi refugee Marline Abdul Ahad joined Yarra Trams as a cleaner.
- After two years, she qualified to work as a tram driver.
- Now 12 years on the job, she says nothing is impossible.
Describing those early years as “tough”, she said her family, were “ineligible to receive welfare payments as they were refugees but with New Zealand citizenship at the time they arrived in Australia.”
There are around 500 trams servicing Melbourne. (AAP Image/ Yarra Trams) Source: AAP / AAP Image/ Yarra Trams
She said “I strived to be distinguished in my work (and) I got promoted from a cleaning lady to a supervisor soon after I began working there.”
“When the company saw our ability to work diligently, they gave us the opportunity to train the rest of the employees,” she said.
Sights set on driving trams
“The test was difficult and required technical English language that I did not know, but I studied very hard and diligently until I passed the test,” Ms Ahad said.
“Success in the driving test requires 100 per cent, without errors. The company does not accept 95 per cent (for example),” she said.
Of her first day on the job, she said, “I read all the prayers and wished myself well on the first day as I was nervous because I did not know the streets of Melbourne accurately and I had to learn everything about them before the first day.”
The first day, the first week, and the first year passed, and here I am, 12 years on, driving the tram in the streets of Melbourne, especially to the areas where the Arab community lives.
Marline Abdul Ahad
Finally, Ms Ahad says, “Even I myself did not expect that at 50, I would be able to drive a tram in Melbourne, but no one should say that (anything is) impossible. If they want something, they must strive, persevere, plan and implement,” she said.
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