refugees in Canada


DAYA BATIM MOSES, now 33 and living in Ottawa, remembers her first school experience in Uganda’s Magburu Refugee Camp, not far from the border of her South Sudan homeland. “My grade one class was under a big tree. We used stones to sit on as there were no actual seats,” she says. “We would write on the floor before UNHCR brought us scholastic materials such as books, pens and rulers. I remember that it would take us up to one-and-a-half hours to walk to school, a long way when you are five or six.”


Daya, whose parents and seven brothers and sisters were forced to flee South Sudan in 1986 during Sudan’s second civil war, walked for days over mountainous terrain to reach safety. Eventually they found it in the Magburu Refugee Camp where Daya’s father was given a plot of land and farming tools to grow food. With no running water or electricity, he replaced the UNHCR tent with a patch house and the family began the first of many difficult years in a refugee camp.


Although her parents were struggling to cope—one of her siblings was a newborn and Daya’s mother fought to keep the baby healthy—Daya remembers accepting the life they had been given. “As a child, you can easily adapt to any situation,” she says. “We didn’t feel the hardship as much as our parents.”


It was her father’s hard work to keep the family afloat and his generosity in helping newly arrived refugees to adapt to camp life that made an impression on Daya. Her father became chairman of the camp, and despite being pushed to return and


fight in South Sudan, he believed that the future education and stability of his family were the keys to a better life.


Daya attended a local primary school while in the camp, an arrangement— along with the provision of school materials—facilitated In


by Uganda, secondary school


UNHCR. is


fee-based; Daya earned a UNHCR scholarship,


allowing her to attend


high school, something her parents couldn’t afford.


In 1997, again facing insecurity, the family resettled in UNHCR’s Kyangwali


Refugee Settlement


in western Uganda. Daya began secondary school,


living away from


her family in a dormitory at the school. While it was hard to be alone, she says, she loved school. “I knew it was the only way out for me, to have a better future.”


With her father as her first inspiration and UNHCR camp workers as role models, Daya also knew that her calling was in helping others. “I really admired the UN special workers in the camps; I grew up with them and was inspired to train as a social worker,” she says. In 2003 she graduated with a diploma of social work and social administration in Kampala, Uganda, volunteering


at the Kyangwali


Camp in both ration distribution and settlement assistant positions.


By then Daya had married her South Sudanese husband who had immigrated to Canada. In 2004 Daya arrived in Canada, later receiving her Bachelor of Science in Human Services Management.


Now


couple has a busy life in Ottawa where they’re raising their four boys,


and where Daya is a researcher and trainer focusing on South Sudanese cultural information for the Centre for Intercultural Learning.


Despite South Sudan’s independence in 2011, the world’s newest country has experienced a brutal three-year conflict, with an estimated 50,000 dead. UNHCR reports that 1.5 million people have been forced to flee their homes. Two of Daya’s relatives were killed in the most recent conflict, and she feels sadness and empathy for her country.


“No human being would wish to live like this, running from one country to another,” she says.


“Sometimes


people have been displaced for a second or third time. We wish that our people could be stable. To accomplish


something in life, you


must have stability. If your life is on the run, you have no time to think; you’re dodging bullets and living day to day. This isn’t good.”


Daya is grateful to UNHCR for the chance the organization gave her to go to school and to make a future for herself. “Without UNHCR’s support, I wouldn’t be here today,” she says. She is also grateful to Canada for giving her an opportunity to live her childhood dream that began under a tree in the Magburu Refugee Camp.


the


Full of ideas on how to help acclimatize refugees to Canadian life, Daya recommends more counselling services be made available to those refugees suffering from the trauma of war. She also wants to encourage her South Sudanese community to support UNHCR. “They are willing to help,” she says. “We can find a way to engage them.” «


UNHCR / 5


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