Earlier than Arnold Dix was hailed a hero for serving to rescue 41 males trapped underground in India, he was already a “silent hero” to 1000’s of migrant employees pressured to reside in slave-like situations in Qatar.
Australian Story can reveal the worldwide tunnelling knowledgeable from Victoria ran a secret, self-funded humanitarian program within the oil-rich emirate within the lead-up to it internet hosting soccer’s 2022 World Cup, when ill-treatment of employees from Africa and Asia was rife.
Dix, a barrister, scientist and professor in engineering, organised support in Qatar and did it secretly out of concern of reprisals from “a multi-billion-dollar human-trafficking system”.
“I used to be capable of help 1000’s of individuals with every thing from meals to getting passports, to methods to depart the nation, [getting] entry to well being care, speech pathology, medicines … and [getting] them out of jail,” Dix says. He additionally helped international ladies who had been pressured into prostitution.
“I simply quietly did that and I did that for years,” says Dix, who went to Qatar in 2011 to seek the advice of on the underground security programs on the nation’s new worldwide airport.
“I am so excited [for those] who’ve turned their lives from slavery into the assorted issues they do all over the world. For me, the proof’s within the pudding.”
One of many males Dix helped throughout an eight-year stint in Qatar, Nigerian-born Waheed Lawal, is now working within the US as a security engineer on the New Shepard undertaking, which is run by billionaire Jeff Bezos’s aerospace firm, Blue Origin.
Lawal credit Dix with pulling him out of poverty in Qatar, serving to him to reverse his dangerous fortunes after he fell sufferer to an employment rip-off.
“[Dix] is a silent hero,” Lawal says. “He has impacted numerous lives by his enduring acts of kindness, particularly in direction of marginalised teams.”
Dix’s title hit the headlines final November when he was referred to as to India to help within the rescue of 41 employees who have been trapped after the collapse of a serious freeway tunnel they have been constructing by the Himalayas.
All the lads have been freed after a marathon, extremely publicised 17 days, and Dix was praised not only for his work within the rescue however the respect he confirmed Indian folks and their tradition.
Lawal says: “[He’s] an individual that does not take a look at colors of individuals, does not take a look at religions, and … simply goes forward and does what is true.”
Lawal was a geologist engaged on a World Well being Group undertaking in Nigeria when he was approached with the supply of a high-paying govt job within the oil and gasoline trade in Qatar.
Lawal bought his house to pay $US8,000 ($12, 332) for a visa, however on arrival in Qatar, there was no job.
“I began crying,” Lawal says. “I can not flip again. It is too late. I bought every thing.”
He was pressured to share a bed room with 15 different males, paying for a bed-bug infested mattress on the ground and scrounging for work and meals.
Lawal’s salvation got here when he heard there was work on the airport.
“I can nonetheless keep in mind the primary day I laid my eyes on you,” Lawal tells Dix in a video name.
“We’re about 100 black folks and also you’re proper in the midst of us. You make me personally comfy … Previous to you, I by no means stood subsequent to any white man.”
Dix employed Lawal, coaching him and certifying him as a security officer, which enabled Lawal to discover a higher job and save sufficient cash to depart for the US.
Lawal then accomplished an affiliate diploma in occupational well being and security in Seattle, Washington, and located work in a wide range of initiatives earlier than being employed by Blue Origin.
Lawal says that with out Dix, his life could be far completely different. “You are helpless. There is no approach out. And now you see [Dix] step up. That is an enormous factor. I hold telling that story to anybody I meet. It is unforgettable.”
Dix says he discovered of the plight of international employees after witnessing labourers on the airport website go to sleep on the job. He found they have been ravenous.
He was shocked by the best way determined migrants have been handled within the streets, as in the event that they have been invisible. “Individuals would simply stroll proper previous,” he says.
Dix could not flip a blind eye. He organised night-time clandestine meals drops earlier than deciding to determine coaching programs by his firm to present the employees {qualifications}.
Dix jokes that from the skin his firm appeared like Qatar’s worst-performing consultancy. Nevertheless, it “supplied me with a chance to proceed the humanitarian work, whereas additionally serving to with the protection on their infrastructure.”
Victor Gadimoh, a Nigerian nonetheless dwelling in Qatar, assisted Dix in working the help program, enabling Dix to stay nameless.
Gadimoh says many employment scams have been run by corporations with out the information of authorities, and he insists the nation has improved its safety of employees for the reason that frenzy of building for the World Cup.
Gadimoh needed to inform the story of Dix’s good work in Qatar years in the past, however Dix stopped him, fearful for the protection of his household, Greenwood and himself. Gadimoh is glad the person he calls “Prof” can now be recognised for his life-saving work.
“In my tradition, good deeds are to be remembered and retold,” Gadimoh writes in a letter. “I do not suppose Prof is a wealthy man — what I noticed was that he was ready [to share] what he had with others. I feel he’s only a working man with a humanitarian coronary heart.”
Gail Greenwood, Dix’s long-time enterprise supervisor in Australia who hung out working with him in Qatar, says Dix bought property to fund the mission and devoted all his earnings from that point to serving to the stranded foreigners.
“He all the time jumps in boots and all and this was no completely different,” Greenwood says. “He simply went in to do the utmost he may to get the perfect final result.
“He noticed a necessity and he went after it.”
Dix says he is aware of what it is like to come back up in opposition to “horrible folks”. He is been duped and cheated in his life, he says, however he chooses “to face above that”.
“My view,” Dix says, “is that if folks simply helped one another once they can, how they will, you’ll have an instantaneous transformation of the planet.”
Watch Australian Story’s Man Underground at 8pm on ABCTV and ABC iview.
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