‘‘When we were taking this photograph I started thinking about where we came from,’’ Nehemiah Kamanda said.
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The photograph of his wife Hettie, their five children, and extended family, was taken at a thanksgiving celebration that marked 10 years since the family arrived in Newcastle from a refugee camp in West Africa.
The Kamanda’s eldest daughter was born en route as the couple fled from rebel fighters in Liberia.
‘‘We had to run for our lives, not knowing where we were going. You just run,’’ Mrs Kamanda said.
She was nine months pregnant and had been running for two days when her labour began.
‘‘The rebels are after us, no nurse, no doctor, no midwife,’’ Mrs Kamanda said.
Two hours after giving birth to Nettie, now 21, in the dust behind a house, Mrs Kamanda scooped up her baby and walked for a week and three days.
‘‘Maria was my only child born in hospital and that was a great experience for me,’’ said Mrs Kamanda, who was pregnant with her youngest child when they arrived in Newcastle in 2005.
‘‘That’s why we stopped to say thank you,’’ Mr Kamanda said.
Mr Kamanda organised a function held at Mayfield Community Centre on Saturday to mark the anniversary and thank the Australian government for enabling them to create a new life in Newcastle.
We are not rich but ‘‘it’s amazing for us to see that great change from poverty to higher heights,’’ Mr Kamanda said.
‘‘If we did not come to this country there would be no education for the children, no education for [Hettie], we would been living from hand to mouth,’’ Mr Kamanda said.
He especially wanted to thank Ingham Enterprises for a job as a process worker that had supported his family.
He also works in disability support on the weekends - a job he started on a voluntary basis.
He was in his early 20s working as a housekeeper to pay for his school fees when attacks from warring faction in Liberia drove him to flee.
His father was killed, his mother was burnt alive and he was separated from his now wife.
They escaped first to Ivory Coast, then to Guinea, where the whole family lived in one room of a divided tent, surviving on one meal a day for 12 years.
The couple said they broke down in tears when they opened the door of the Islington house that had been furnished for them by an Australian government funded refugee program.
‘‘Coming from a tent to a house where everything had been furnished, down to the carpet, it was a moment when we couldn’t imagine how it had happened – it was like a miracle when we entered the house the first day,’’ Mr Kamanda said.
The Kamanda family are desperate to repay all the help and kindness that has been extended to them.
Nettie is in her final year of a medical science degree at the Australian National University in Canberra. She plans to specialise in paediatrics to ‘‘repay’’ the assistance her family received at the John Hunter Hospital.
She arrived in Australia with a severe throat access and her younger brother was hospitalised within 24 hours with life-threatening malaria.
When Mrs Kamanda graduates as a registered nurse later this year she has plans to set up a support centre in Liberia to help young people – especially girls who have been forced into prostitution.
The family have called on the government to be ‘‘a little bit more flexible’’ with the refugee policies.
‘‘There are hundreds of thousands of Africans suffering with no food and no money.’’ they said.
Centre: Hettie studying nursing at University of Newcastle and Nehemiah Kamanda works full-time at Inghams and in disability care on weekends. arrived in Newcastle in 2005
Children.
1. Nettie, 21, is in her last year of a medical science degree at ANU Canberra.
She wants to be a paediatrician as ‘‘payback’’ for the treatment she received at the John Hunter Hospital after arriving in Australia severely ill with a throat abscess.
2. Patience, 19, is studying business administration at a private college in Newcastle.
3. Nehemiah, 17 is in year 12 at Newcastle High
4. Regina, 15, is in year 10 at Newcastle High. She wants to be a journalist.
5. Maxwell, 11, was hospitalised with severe malaria within 24 hours of arriving in Australia. He goes to Glendale Public School and wants to be world class runner
6. Maria, 9, was born in Australia, she goes to Glendale Public School and wants to be a teacher when she grows up.
Cousins
7 & 8: Nehemiah’s niece Elizabeth and nephew Samual arrived in Australia four years ago.
Relatives who live in Sydney
9. Hettie’s sister Eunice
10. Eunice Prince
11. Divine, 2
12 Peaches 7
