Meet Some Refugees

Did you know that it is not easy to tell who is a refugee and who is a migrant? Refugees do not wear badges. They may be the person sitting next to you , your neighbours, your teacher, the person in the bread shop or the doctor who looks after you in hospital

Miriam's Story

Miriam was born in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia in West Africa. Her mother Olivia worked as a nurse and her father Jacob was a schoolteacher. Olivia and Jacob feared for their lives because they belonged to a political party that opposed the Liberian government. Some of their friends had disappeared and they had received threats and had been interrogated at the police station. Jacob was badly beaten. They feared they would be next to disappear so they escaped by walking across the border into Sierra Leone in the dead of night. Miriam was only three but she remembers how Jacob carried her and how she had to keep very quite during that scary walk. Olivia put tape across her mouth so she would not cry out. Olivia and Jacob wanted to run as far away as possible to a safe country. They had read about how peaceful Australia was. Family helped them to pay their airfares and they obtained tourist visa’s and they applied for refugee status once they arrived. It took three years for their request to be processed, but eventually they were given permanent residency status.

Twelve years later, Olivia is a lecturer and Jacob is a policy officer in a government department. They have built a family home in Adelaide and have a good circle of friends. Miriam has two younger brothers David and John, who are very happy in primary school. She is working hard in high school and doing well in her exams. She also plays the violin in the school orchestra and is a member of the Student Representative Council.

Miriam is very proud of her parents and glad they were brave enough to escape with her from their troubled homeland. Isn’t this the sort of Australian family we are proud of?

Carl

Carl is ten years old and is in Year Five at school in western Sydney. He came to Australia as a refugee with his parents three years ago. They had to escape the fighting in Bosnia and were accepted by Australia to be resettled here. When he arrived he couldn’t speak English but he quickly learnt it because his school runs special classes in English for students who come from overseas. He says schoolwork in Bosnia was much harder than it is in Australia. He is top of his class in maths and loves soccer but he still misses his old friends in Bosnia.

Lana

Lana arrived in Australia as a refugee from Serbia in 1997 with her teenage son and daughter. During the fighting enemy soldiers raped her and killed her husband. When she arrived she received good resettlement services including torture and trauma counselling but it took several years before she felt her life was getting back to normal. She works in an office where she meets lots of people and is a member of a Women’s Choir. She still dreams of the terrible things that happened in the war, but she also dreams of her children attending University. They both speak English well and are excellent students.

Jose

Jose is from East Timor. He was a student leader when he escaped from Dili to Darwin in 1996. Last year he married a young East Timorese woman and has a small son. He has studied hard to learn English and works as a taxi driver. In his spare time he helps to raise money in Darwin to send back to East Timor so that his people can rebuild their country.

Minh

Minh came from Vietnam with his parents when he was only 2. He speaks English better than he speaks Vietnamese. Although they came from a rich family in Vietnam, his parents arrived with no money and not speaking any English. They worked in a factory for two years and saved all that they could. They then opened a bread shop. They now have 3 children and have built themselves a house in Sydney. Minh is studying to be a dentist, his sister has just started Law. His younger sister wants to be a dancer – she has studied classical Vietnamese dance since she was a little girl. His parents still do not speak English very well – they have been too busy working - and they still miss Vietnam, their old friends and lifestyle. They are very pound of their children and grateful that Australia gave them a second chance.

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