Rural Refugees
In some rural areas, communities are gradually shrinking and dying out as residents move into the city. But recently the people of Mingoola in New South Wales hatched a plan to reverse that by encouraging refugee families to move there. And now they say it's revitalised the town.
These guys feel like they've finally found home in the small country town of Mingoola.
KID: Small buildings and big backyards.
KID: Friendly, everyone is friendly.
KID: Everyone is friendly and you get to ride horses.
But the story of how these guys came to live in this small town actually starts all the way over in Central Africa. These guys grew up there in rural areas with their families. But they were forced to leave when war and violence made it too dangerous for them to stay. So they applied to become refugees and soon after they arrived in Australia and settled into city life. But adapting to such a big change wasn't easy.
EMMANUAL MUSONI, COMMUNITY ADVOCATE: Most of the people from my communities are really grateful to live in Australia. But many of them find it difficult when they get here.
NADINE SHEMA, COMMUNITY ADVOCATE: Around 80 per cent of resettled refugees from our communities come from agriculture backgrounds. They were really missing it.
Meanwhile a small town on the border between NSW and QLD was having some problems of its own.
CHRISTINE DENIS, MINGOOLA RESIDENT: Mingoola for lots of years has been an ageing community so we've got lots of older people but we don't have many younger people and the community is poorer without them.
In fact, there were so few kids left in town the local school had to be shut down. But locals wanted to change that, so they got together and decided to offer some abandoned cottages in the town to refugee families.
JULIA HARPHAM, MINGOOLA RESIDENT: There's one man who came and he found the landscape very close to his landscape in the Congo. He just stood there with the cattle and then he said, "This has healed my soul".
Since then three families have moved to Mingoola. They work and live in the community and now that there's more kids in town the schools open again.
JULIA HARPHAM, MINGOOLA RESIDENT: The first day of second term this year the school re-opened its doors for the new family that had arrived. And it was very exciting for all of us.
STUDENT: Hi. We are Mingoola school. We are very unique. Last term it was closed but I'm glad it's not because we do lots of fun learning.
Today locals reckon things are going pretty well. Some residents even think rural towns should follow their lead.
CHRISTINE DENIS, MINGOOLA RESIDENT: We've got this mish mash of people, somehow we fit beautifully together.
Meanwhile Mingoolas newest residents are just thankful for the warm welcome they've received.
JONATHAN KANANI: The people of Mingoola is good people, friendly people, lovely people. I don't know how I can say about the things that they do for us. I can't describe that.
FAINESS KABURA: It's like a family.
JONATHAN KANANI: Yeah.
- Jack Evans | Reporter
- Refugees and Migrants: Behind the News | history
- African refugees reinvigorating rural Mingoola in social experiment to boost ageing community: ABC News | weblink
- Australia:NSW | Map
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