By Gabriella Payne
The Cardinia Shire is home to some incredible people, and to mark World Refugee Day on Sunday 20 June, the Gazette featured the inspiring story of local resident and community leader, Jeffah Thabach.
Despite running for his life from war torn South Sudan and living on rations in a refugee camp for over 15 years before making the arduous journey to Australia, Jeffah never gave up on his dreams for a better life – and now he’s made them a reality.
Happy and settled in his home here in Australia, you would never suspect the hardships that Jeffah had to face – but unfortunately, there were many.
“Being a refugee is not very easy and not something that anyone chooses – there are always compelling reasons [as to why they left],” Jeffah explained.
“I am South Sudanese… so for someone like myself and other refugees, they left their homes because of war.“
Jeffah was about six years old when he was forced to flee his homeland because of the war – a traumatic experience for anyone to go through, let alone a young child.
“Leaving your home is not an easy thing to do, because you love it and you belong to it.
“When you leave your home and become homeless, it’s very hard, it was a struggle,” he said.
Jeffah said that “that was all a long time ago”, but the things he saw clearly stuck with him, however, he’s never let that stop him from going on to greatness.
After escaping South Sudan, Jeffah made his way to Ethiopia where he began living in the refugee camp – the place that became his home for the next 15+ years.
Jeffah described the struggles of growing up in the refugee camp as a young man with the “limited resources”, meagre food rations and constant challenges making it seem almost impossible that things would get better one day – but he never gave up hope.
After working hard, studying in the camp and waiting a “long, long time” to be resettled in Australia, Jeffah was finally granted a visa and made his way from Africa to forge a new life here in Melbourne.
Since then, he has gone on to achieve many incredible things like winning a Refugee Champion award, setting up Konnext Right Now (a community support group) and gaining a degree in social work, which he uses in his role as a project officer for the Centre for Multicultural Youth, helping young people through their struggles.
An inspiring man, Jeffah faced countless challenges but managed to turn his life around, and he is now a beacon of hope in our community.
