[6][7] When Esmaeli was thirteen years old, her parents sold all their belongings and decided to leave Afghanistan to escape from the war and the Taliban regime.

Their difficult and 10000 km long journey took six months, via Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine, and the Czech Republic,[8] but in 1999, they finally crossed the border to Bavaria.

During the dangerous journey with long wintry walks through woods, and rides hidden in train waggons and car boots, Zohre Esmaili nearly drowned crossing a border river in Slovakia.

[3] After arriving in Germany, the family first stayed in three asylum seekers' hostels in Darmstadt, Schwalbach, and Calden, before moving to their own flat in Vellmar near Kassel.

[7] During three weeks in July 2013 a 4x5 meter large picture of Esmaeli could be seen by S-Bahn travellers in Düsseldorf on an empty windowless house wall which was painted by airbrush artist Andi Ponto.

[16] Her brother, Abdul Gharfour Esmaeli, is a cruiserweight boxer who started his professional career at the Internationale Box-Gala in Kassel in November 2012.

[17][18] When Zohre Esmaeli was 16 years old the then current Miss Hessen approached her during a shopping trip in a H&M store in Kassel and asked if she was a model and wanted to have photos taken.

Her first big clients were the furniture manufacturer Bretz who made her the centre of a large advertising campaign from 2003 until 2007[20] and the German designer Manfred Bogner who featured her from 2007 in many adverts for his fashion line BONNIE[21] which were published in magazines like Vogue.

[23][24] In 2006, Belgian designer Gerald Watelet discovered Esmaeli and she ran the catwalk for his label at the Fashion Week in Paris.

Other ambassadors of the charity are the German épée fencer Monika Sozanska,[32] runner Marius Broening, actress Vanessa Eichholz[33] and film producer Catherine Ackermann.