At age seven he was one of the refugees at the centre of the Tampa crisis. Now at 23 he's just won a prestigious scholarship to study in New York.
Abbas Nazari was one of more than 400 refugees rescued from their sinking boat by the Norwegian freighter, the Tampa, of the Australian coast back in 2001.
The Australian government refused to take them in, but New Zealand did.
Mr Nazari joins Corin Dann in the studio to tell him about the experience.
