In the late 80's there was a forum for the restoration of democracy, to get the government to have a multi-party state. My dad became our area spokesperson. In 1991, the government passed legislation allowing for other political parties. My dad joined the opposition party as a member for parliament. We suffered then because we were not aligned with the ruling party line. We were harassed, we lost property, our shop was raided and we lost business. Occasionally we would be threatened but it was more talk than anything else. Then in 1992, after my dad contested and lost the election, things became a lot tougher, we lost a lot of money, a lot of popularity. He had lost the seat to a member of another opposition party, not the ruling party, and we had enemies in both camps: the opposition party that he lost to; and the ruling party that won the whole election. He couldn't get a job or register a business, he was out of work for many years. Although my mother was working in a mission hospital which wasn't under the government's direct control, she suffered too, she was harassed and couldn't do anything.

I was working in the city then, and I was identified with the opposition because I was the son of an opposition party candidate. It's a small world there, it's like everybody knows everybody. That's how the stigma starts. Our relatives were constantly harassed, most of them lost their jobs, some of them lost their lives. We would be picked up by the police for no reason and interrogated. You begin to realise that it is too many coincidences, all of this happening to the one family. I used to work for a government company for six years and after my dad had contested the seat I couldn't get a promotion. At the same time I was having difficulties outside of work, I was receiving threats. One time I was with my cousin driving, and suddenly a bullet came straight through the roof of the car, no warning or anything. I knew I wasn't safe. I was always looking out. You couldn't know what was going to happen next - if you were going to be the next one to die.

It was then that I decided to leave, to go somewhere and study. I chose Australia. When I left I was thinking that I would be gone for maybe three or four years, until I had finished studying, and by that time it would be safe for me to return home. I never came out here thinking I would have to stay - that's why I didn't even think of applying for refugee status or anything. There was an election in my country in 1997 and I thought 'This is when there will be some change'. Things changed, but for the worse! The government retained power in Kenya, and are even more determined to crush the opposition. People have been beaten up, strange accidents have been happening. Since I came out here I have lost four relatives; three of them in mysterious accidents and one of them in a police prison. I started thinking 'What will happen to me if I have to go back now?' My family tell me I can't come back and they are trying to get out, but they have very limited resources. I really want to go home and if that wasn't the case I would have applied for protection as soon as I got here.

Applying for protection is not easy. The first thing you do is question the need to do it. The need to have to explain yourself so that you are acceptable. I've never had to do that in my life. I believed that I had a right to be somewhere, a right to a place where I could live. I've never had to beg for space to be accepted. I can't come to terms with the fact that I really don't belong anywhere. I have to ask permission to just stay, while I work out what to do with my life. It's like one morning you wake up and you have nowhere to go, and nobody to turn to, because you don't have a piece of paper which says you can stay.

It's like a sentence. You are waiting on something which you have no say in, and you have no rights as such to question the process. The rules have been mapped out to make it difficult for you to claim any status. They're like an obstacle course; something you have to overcome instead of something which is there to assist you. You don't know what to do, you don't want to make a mistake, you don't want to offend the powers that be. You have to go out there and say you are innocent of a crime that you never committed in the first place. We are human beings who, through no fault of our own, find ourselves in a powerless situation. We shouldn't be put in a position where we feel we have no rights - we shouldn't be accused of things.

I try to understand that as hard a situation as I am experiencing, those people who resent us and believe lies about us don't know any better. I am not in a position where I am given a chance to express my views or to influence public opinion, and although you can't force people to change their opinion, you can be as understanding of them as I would want them to be of me. The only thing you can do is try and explain to them that things are not as simple as they are defined by politicians. I mean there are other points of view. I try as hard as I can to at least talk to people, to give them a chance to understand what it is to be dispossessed, to have no home of your own, to have no support structure around you - no family, no friends, nothing to count on.

My family has always been there to look out for me, and knowing that they are in a position where they can't help themselves and can't help me - it makes this so hard. The biggest loss for me is the personal touch of people; with my family it's just having the ability to see them whenever I want to, to talk to them, to know that they are okay, that they are safe. Your parents are looking for their children to help them out in their old age and I'm the first born in my family. I would like to be there for my parents because they're getting on in years but that is something that I cannot do.

You work so hard all your life to sustain yourself and look after the people you care about, and then it comes to a time when you have no say, nothing you can do. Not being allowed to work can also undermine your confidence in yourself, you are forced to beg for help and to depend upon the goodwill of others. You have no power to negotiate, you can't claim any rights, you can't go to anyone and say 'Hey I am qualified, I can do this', because you don't belong. You have no status as a person, as that right has been taken away from you. You are forced to stay, and just wait for something to happen over which you have no say and no control - it's humiliating. But my strength comes from my mother; she always told me 'As long as you are honest with yourself, you have every right to fight for what you believe in'.

I believe that human beings should not be bound; should not be defined by what they are not, but by what they are. This has been a learning experience for me. I think that one day in my life I will look back and realise this is something I had to experience, in order to understand what it is like to be dispossessed, to be lonely, to have nothing of my own. It is something that will help me to see the world and people who are in that position more clearly - because if you have not been there, you cannot know.

The people who have understood where I am coming from and tried to make me feel accepted give me a belief that there are decent people in the world. There are people out there with feelings. People who care about human beings as human beings, not as political, racial, religious, economic stereotypes that have been used to create conflict. You lose so much when you are forced to define yourself as a stateless person; you lose your identity. But we can all still identify with human compassion for each other. I offer my belief that people are much better treating each other with respect, not judging people by what they're not, but by who they are. Let the person determine their own destiny, give them a choice - I believe that's what you call 'a fair go'.