Ali tells how obvious disadvantages in Aboriginal communities helped shape his resolve to help First Nations people create The Voice to Parliament on issues affecting their lives.

He started the national Afghan Hazaras for Yes campaign in Adelaide and has since visited mosques, doorknocked, distributed pamphlets and watched Afghan community support for the yes vote grow across Australia.

“They really need a solution that comes from their voice that suits their needs,” Ali says.

“My take on the crisis is the solution must come from the community, and if you turn a blind eye to what the First Nations people are going through it doesn’t solve anything.

“This is about giving Aboriginal people a say in their own affairs, not in other portfolios, not in trade, but in their own areas where it affects them.”

The multi-award-winning documentary maker of Watander, My Countryman, says his film made with Jolyon Hoff explores the arrival of Afghan cameleers in Australia in 1860.

It explores the nation’s historical connection with Afghanistan and tells how he met descendants of Afghan cameleers in outback Australia who helped open up the country, then chose to remain and married Aboriginal women.

Ali arrived in Australia as a refugee from Indonesia and is now studying politics, law and sociology at the University of South Australia.

It was his work with the United Nations in Afghanistan around disarmament, strengthening political institutions and building a stronger civil society that led to him being forced to flee his homeland.

Ali faced threats from warlords, and the Taliban targeted his car with an improvised explosive device.

After arriving in Indonesia in 2013, Ali later co-founded the first refugee-led school in West Java and now manages the Cisarua Learning program from Australia to fund refugee-led schools in Indonesia and Thailand.

It is his passion as a photographer and for telling stories through a lens with the cameleers that has helped drive Ali to share the story about why he grew to support The Voice to Parliament.

“I realised how important the Uluru Statement from the Heart is, how 250 delegates from all over Australia met and how they came to invite the Australian people to come along and show unity and listen to their voice,” Ali says.

“That’s where my connection starts, when we received the call from the First Nations people with love in their heart, I said, ‘when you receive this invitation with open arms and with love in their hearts why not say yes to this invitation’.”

Hazaras for Yes group were in Adelaide’s Light Square last week where more than 20 organisations signed a joint statement to endorse the yes vote.

The event aimed to bring together grassroots organisations including The Don Dunstan Foundation, Purple House and Uniting SA to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people through a voice to federal parliament.

Members of Australian Sikh Support, The Wyatt Trust, Council of Christian and Jews, SA Unions and the Islamic Society of SA all signed the joint statement to support a yes vote for The Voice to Parliament.

Australian Alliance to End Homelessness chief executive officer David Pearson said Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations are over-represented when it comes to being homeless and numbers are increasing.

“What we are doing isn’t working, and what we need to do is better listen to the perspectives of the people affected by this,” he said, in officially joining the campaign.

Ali is determined to use the vote in the referendum that he was given after becoming an Australian citizen in 2021 to support others who share a similar plight to the Hazaras in Afghanistan, where his people suffer as an ethnic minority.

For Ali, it is about telling his Afghan community about the vote and feeling hopeful that not a single person in this community to date has opposed the referendum.

“(As Hazaras in Afghanistan) we faced mass killings, my grandfather was enslaved, his land was taken from him, he was driven out of his land and we share the pain,” Ali says.

“I have spoken to our community about how we are part of this democratic process and how our vote can play a role for a fairer nation, I have had people hug me and say ‘of course we will vote yes, because we have the same history’.

“One person told me if we don’t understand the issues that Aboriginal people face, who would understand.

“For me, it’s not about winning, it’s about being on the right side of history.”