The
Catholic Weekly
Online
Sydney
11 January 2004
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Out
of Africa – with hope
Visit
to husband landed Anna in jail
Where
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Sparked
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Parish honours ‘linchpin’ of
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Maria finds family link in UK college
The day Br Nicholas dropped the pin
Out of Africa – with hope
Anna Dimo with some of the Sudanese students she has assisted as a teacher’s aide at St John’s Primary School, Auburn
By Chris Lindsay
When Anna Dimo arrived in Australia from Sudan as a legal immigrant, she brought her five children and three children of her relatives, children who had each lost a mother or father.
She left behind her husband, who had been jailed for his efforts to get his wife and children to safety from the civil war and the clutches of (anti-Christian) government spies.
Her husband is still alive in Sudan; the Red Cross found him there in 2002. But she would need to pay $A1360 to get him to Kenya and then more for the airfare to Australia.
On October 17, 2000, after 11 years in a refugee camp in Egypt (interrupted by a dangerous visit back to the Sudan), Anna stepped on to Australian soil as a Sudanese Catholic woman who could not speak English, alone in a strange country with eight children.
In Sydney she was given accommodation in a house supplied by the Department of Immigration, but after four weeks she had to find a house for herself.
“ I had no English and no one to help,” she says. “I finally found a house in Ashfield for $360 a week, but after paying rent and food and looking after eight children it was very hard for me.
“ Then the man who owned the house sold it and I had to find another. It took me three months to find one and I had no car to look. Finally I found a place for $380 a week.
“ I think it would have been better if the government had let us stay in the government house until I had finished the English language course and found a job.
“ But the Immigration Department did some good things for us; they arranged for us to get a TV, a washing machine and a fridge.”
Once the accommodation problem was settled it was time to look for a job.
“ I worked as an aide in a nursing home for three days a week,” Anna says.
However, her life has had a turn for the better since the Catholic Church, and the Josephite Community Aid centre stepped in to help.
“ Now, thanks to the Catholic Church, I am working at St John’s Primary School, Auburn, as a teacher’s aide for five days a week,” she says.
“ There are 56 Sudanese kids here and I help them in the class. The teacher teaches in English and I help the children to understand. None of the Sudanese children could speak English when they arrived and those who were in camps in Uganda had never been to school, they only spoke Dinka, the Sudanese language, and maybe Arabic.
“ The Sudanese children who were in Egypt spoke Arabic, too. I speak both languages so I can help explain what the teacher is saying if they do not understand.
“
I am very happy to work here. I love looking after the children and when we
were in Egypt I volunteered to do it.”
Anna plays a further role in helping her people
in Australia; she is chairwoman of the Sudanese
Women’s Group in Sydney.
Anna’s contact with the Josephites came through a cousin, Wuik Dut, who
knew of their existence.
“ He brought Sr Maria and Sr Helena to my place,” she says.
“ We were sleeping on the floor and they gave me beds and blankets, and took me out and showed me kookaburras. I hadn’t been out of the house before.”
Anna had already made contact with the local Catholic Church.
“ When I was looking for a house I would always ask where the Catholic Church was, and after we moved in I had the children going to local Catholic schools.
“ The kids liked going to school but when they brought their homework home I could not understand it. When the schools sent a note home I could not read it.
“ But my niece could understand enough English to explain it to me.”
Her five children are now aged 10, 12, 14, 16 and 17; and the three she cares for are 19, 21 and 22. Three are at TAFE, three in high school and two in primary school. At the time of writing none of them has a job.
“ I am happy to be in Australia,” says Anna. “It is quiet here and there are human rights.
“ Sudan was terrible, there was discrimination and no human rights. They discriminated against Christians.
“
Here at school the principal and the teachers are all very good to me. I would
like to say thanks to the Catholic diocese and Catholic Education for helping
the Sudanese and especially to the priest at St John of God Church, Fr Ray
Farrell, and to the
sisters who are working hard
all the time to help the
Sudanese.
“ I hope the Australian Government will help by joining those who are working to bring peace to Sudan.
“ Australia is now my home, I am very happy in school and I know God is great.”