But her story is a bit different.
With the support of Red Cross interpreter Mhamad Oes, a former Syrian refugee himself, the former Gaza refugee told her story this week to help the Otago Daily Times mark World Refugee Day today.
Ms Alsaadoni’s father left their Gaza home for Cairo, Egypt, for a week to get medicine in 2014.
After five years apart, the family was reunited in New Zealand last year.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ figures show 70.8 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide last year and, among them, Ms Alsaadoni left the violence-torn Gaza Strip with her mother, Jamila, and two sisters.
She joined her father, Nasouh Alsaadoni, and three other sisters in Auckland after border closures at the Gaza Strip severed the family.
"The first time I came here, I was shocked by everything," Ms Alsaadoni said. "I feel I’m alive.
"In my country, there’s no electricity — just four hours a day.
"And sometimes we don’t have water.
"Everything is good here."
For five years, her father lived in limbo in Malaysia before learning the UN refugee agency would move him to the Mangere Refugee Resettlement Centre last year.
All the while, the violent conflict between Palestinians and Israelis in Gaza worsened, Ms Alsaadoni said.
She would live for months at a time without hearing gunshots or explosions, but fighting would resume and she often heard violent clashes.
She finished a mathematics degree in 2017 and started teaching maths in the community as she awaited news from her father.
Last winter, Ms Alsaadoni moved to Caversham to start a new life.
At the end of July, she had a daughter, Layan, now 10 months old.
And in March, as New Zealand entered Covid-19 Alert Level 4, Ms Alsaadoni worked one day a week as an essential services worker at Preens Drycleaners — proud to keep the country going through lockdown.
Only 1% of the world’s displaced people were resettled a year, Red Cross migration general manager Rachel O’Connor said.
In July 2020, New Zealand is due to increase its refugee quota from 1000 a year to 1500 but, with the country’s border closed, resettlement remains uncertain.
