Boe Htoo, Habibeh and Nay Chee are part of the Refugee and Cultural Diversity team at Bendigo Community Health Services. All three settled in Bendigo on humanitarian Visas. We caught up with them for Harmony Day, to find out about their work and lives in Bendigo, and to ask the question, what does living in harmony mean to you?

“No matter our background, we can build trust with each other,” Boe Htoo said. “We can live in peace and help each other as we help ourselves. We can improve our own lives for the future development of each other.”

Boe Htoo is a refugee project worker at BCHS. She started work here in January 2023, and was initially employed to help connect Karen people with vital cancer screening and treatment.

Boe Htoo arrived in Australia in May 2018 with her two children, then nine and 13.

“It was lonely at first,” she said on making the move from a refugee camp to Bendigo. “I was not disappointed to come here, but it was hard. I just thought, if other people can do it, I can do it.”

In Thailand, Boe Htoo had studied in the refugee camp, then worked in the camp hospital for nine years.

In Bendigo, her Thai qualification was not recognised, and nor was her language. So, she started from scratch. She enrolled to study English at Bendigo TAFE, and then a Certificate III in Health Services Assistance.

Boe Htoo is now working full time, and her children also have big career aspirations. Her son plans to become a police officer, and her daughter, a flight attendant.

...

 

“I think living in harmony means that no matter our political opinions, our gender, our belief system or where we’re from, we all live together in peace,” Habibeh said.

Habibeh is a bilingual community worker, on the Cancer service supports for refugee patients in Bendigo program. She is also in her final year of a Bachelor of Nursing/Midwifery at La Trobe University in Bendigo.

She said had she not come to come to Australia as a refugee from Iran seven years ago, she likely would not have gone to university.

After arriving, she started Year 11 at Bendigo Senior Secondary College, where she said the English as Second Language classes for refugee students proved essential, and successful.

“I thought it would be really scary to come here and I was really nervous,” Habibeh said. “The language barrier was a big issue and I thought it would take me ages to learn English.”

She said one year later, she was confident, had made friends and looked forward to the future. She credited a BCHS Afghan community worker for helping her and her family settle, access services and learn the customs, rules and laws of Australia.

“They were amazing,” she said. “It’s great to now be giving back.”

 ...

“Living in harmony for me is being respectful of each other, accepting where we come from and living in peace regardless of our faith or cultural background,” Nay Chee said.

Nay Chee has lived in Bendigo since 2010. He arrived at the age of 13 with his mum and four brothers from a refugee camp on the Thai-Burma border, via a short stay in Sydney then Melbourne.

“The first time I came to Bendigo I remember there was a festival on and I thought it was really cool and really diverse and that it would be a good place to live,” he said. “And we’re still here. We love it.”

Nay Chee’s first experience of Bendigo Community Health Services was taking part in a BCHS camp for Karen kids while at Bendigo Senior Secondary College.

“After Year 12 I kept that connection and started volunteering,” he said. The experience would pave the way for a future embedded in helping others, after a slight detour. At first, Nay Chee began a Bachelor of Business, envisaging a career in IT or accounting.

“I started to do volunteer work and started to lose my interest in business, profit margins and demands,” he said. “At the same time, I saw an increasing number of Karen people arriving in Bendigo and not many people working in this space. I really wanted to support the community and thought maybe there was something more I could do.”

Nay Chee has since obtained diplomas in interpreting and translating, community services, leadership management and human resource management. He’s now about to complete a Bachelor of Social Work through Deakin University.  And, he’s firmly embedded in the Karen community in Bendigo, helping new arrivals navigate life, health and learning here.

“There’s so many aspects to it,” he says of his BCHS role. “In a way it’s like watching a baby grow. When people come here as a refugee, their experience of life is very limited. All of life has been in a refugee camp. So, we have to teach them everything, and we watch them grow like a parent watches a child grow.

“Slowly they learn English, they enrol in a course, they graduate from uni, they get a job. They arrive as a person with no identity, no documents, no citizenship, and we see them buy a house, buy a car.

“I don’t think you can get that feeling in any other job. Some Karen people have become nurses, or flight attendants, or some work with me! When just a few years ago they were my clients. You can’t buy that feeling. It’s so good.”