"Being a refugee is not a choice. Our choice is to die at home or risk death trying to escape." Yusra Mardini
Yusra Mardini fled her native Syria to the Turkish coast in 2015 and boarded a small dinghy full of refugees bound for Greece. When the small and overcrowded boat's engine cut out, it began to sink. Yusra, her sister and two others took to the water, pushing the boat for three and a half hours in open water until they eventually landed on Lesbos, saving the lives of the passengers aboard.
This is the story of that remarkable woman, whose journey started in a war-torn suburb of Damascus and took her through Europe to Berlin and from there to the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
Yusra Mardini is an athlete, one of People magazine's 25 women changing the world, a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador and one of Time Magazine's 30 most influential teens of 2016.
Global icon Emma Watson calls Yusra Mardini's story an "inspiration".
"Yusra has an incredible story: she fled the war in Syria trying to reach Greece by boat....She is now the youngest ever UNHCR @refugees Goodwill Ambassador, and you can read her incredible story in Butterfly." @emmawatson Yusra Mardini is an Olympic swimmer and Syrian refugee who, in 2015, fled her hometown of Damascus when it became too dangerous to live in the war-torn country. In 2016 Mardini swam with the Refugee Olympic Team and was subsequently named a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador. She lives in Berlin and is training for the 2020 Olympics. The awe-inspiring true story of Yusra Mardini, Syrian refugee and Olympic swimmer.
