Moving from his Egyptian homeland was always going to be a big move for Fady Jacob, but flying straight into the Western Australian mining town of Kalgoorlie-Boulder – 600 kilometres east of Perth – was beyond measure.
Originally hoping to move to Melbourne where he had an uncle and friends, Fady says his move to Kalgoorlie was driven by a job offer to join Addlife Health Kalgoorlie as a physiotherapist.
“I had been planning to come out for a long while and to a big city where I knew people and wouldn’t be by myself,” he says, “but then I found this job while I was looking for work.”
Looking up Kalgoorlie in google maps, Fady says his first reaction was that he was “definitely going to be in the middle of nowhere”.
“Even my uncle said, are you sure it is in Australia?”
Making the move from a “small, developed city, twenty kilometres from Giza and the Pyramids” in 2019, Fady initially came out on his own, with his wife Marina and their then three-year old son, joining him four months later.
Fady says his first recollection of Kalgoorlie was of “red dust everywhere”.
“Landing at eight o’clock at night at the start of the winter season, everything was also closed,” he says, “there were no shops open, and I thought why did I do this to myself and my family.”
But it wasn’t long before Fady says he “started to see the good parts of it”, noting there was little in the way of traffic and that everything – including his new job – were all within walking distance.
“And I thought, where else could you live where you can walk a minute to your work?”
Picture by Mellen Burns
Fady says he was also very quickly struck by the “lovely people” and “rich community” with his job as a physiotherapist providing an opportunity to come into contact with a lot of people.
“I’m happy where I am working,” he says. “I am providing a service that a lot of people need and I love that the clients come in and have a chat.”
Describing Kalgoorlie as a “multicultural city” on the back of its strong mining sector and thriving university campus, Fady says working in Kalgoorlie – home to 30,000 people – has also helped broaden his already ten years’ experience as a physiotherapist.
“As a private practice we are busy all the time seeing clients with different kinds of injuries,” he says, which has seen Fady develop a strong interest in musculoskeletal disorders, sports injuries, and neurology rehabilitation.
Sport has also provided a pathway to become more involved in the community, he says, with Fady joining the local Boulder Soccer Club soon after arriving in Kalgoorlie.
“The first four months were very hard, I was on my own with no family and no-one I knew, so work asked if I liked playing soccer,” he says.
Being introduced to a friend of a colleague who played for the local soccer club, Fady soon joined a team and three years on, is heavily involved in the club, training twice a week with games on Sundays.
While Fady says his son hasn’t put on his football boots just yet, preferring basketball, the move has proved unexpectedly to be beneficial for his health.
“Before we came here our son was very asthmatic with all the pollution and traffic,” he says. “But since moving here it has improved with the cleanliness of the air. It is just so nice to live somewhere where you can see the blue sky.”
With Marina having plans to work in the beauty industry, Fady says the family are also working towards permanent residency, a step which will also help with his “dream” of opening his own business.
Citing the opportunities small regional cities afford in terms of establishing a business, Fady says “it is easier to go out on your own” unlike in cities, where there is lots of competition.
“It is a good start for people that have a dream to start their own project whether that be to build your own practice or start a small shop because regional places need more of everything – like shops and clinics.
“We definitely wouldn’t be where we are without being in Kalgoorlie in the first place. I have learnt a lot from working here.”
