Om Dhungel escaped ethnic persecution in Bhutan to make a new life in Australia. The strength and potential of refugees like him, he says, is vastly underestimated
n his first weeks in Australia on a student visa, Om Dhungel wanted to get a job to send money to his family in Nepal, all refugees driven out of Bhutan. But people here struggled to understand his accent. Sometimes, they would mistakenly call him Tom.Soon after arriving in Sydney, he spotted a vacancy sign on the street, and excitedly pulled his borrowed car in to apply for a position – but it was a motel sign, not a workplace.
Dhungel says it is misguided to view refugees purely as victims, especially when it comes to integrating into local communities.Dhungel has become a cultural leader to many who have followed his path to this area, one of Australia’s most deeply multicultural communities, where residents are drawn from 188 countries.
A narrow focus on widespread vulnerability underestimates refugee strength and potential, says DhungelA year and a half ago, his father, Durga, a farmer and shopkeeper from the tiny southern Bhutanese village of Lamidara, died aged 94 among his wider family here in western Sydney. It was a “good life and a good death”, says his son, even though some 30 years earlier soldiers had three times arrested Durga at the family home he and his wife, Damanta, built.
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