Special qualities refugees bring

OPINION: Anyone who read the heartwarming tale of Burmese woman Sui Ting Cinzah could not fail to have been moved by her journey from Myanmar to Nelson.

Sui's battle for freedom for her family shows real courage in the face of adversity and reminds us of the diversity of people living among us.

Sui, who has been living in Nelson since 2006, escaped Myanmar as a Burmese Chin refugee with her husband Bual, and their three daughters and two sons.

They led a simple, but happy life in Myanmar until it all changed in 1988 when the military killed 3000 students. Her husband was forced to flee to Malaysia in 1996 and she followed with four of her children in 2005. Her eldest daughter was sick so had to remain with her parents. Sui was arrested with her children in 2005 just before arriving in Thailand. She then had to suffer the heartbreak of the family being split up. The Chinzah family finally arrived in New Zealand the following year.

The children have all been successful, but her proudest moment was when one of her sons won a prize at Nelson College, a year after arriving in the country. She is grateful to be here, but we should be equally thankful that Sui and her family settled in Nelson. Families like hers bring richness and diversity to our community.

The Government is meeting an obligation to the international community by taking in a set refugee "quota" - up to 750 a year. It does this voluntarily, and New Zealand is one of a handful of countries that operates a regular refugee quota programme. It is run under the auspices of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, which puts forward those it deems most in need of resettlement. Between 1980 and 2002, 16,556 refugees and displaced persons were resettled under the Refugee Quota Programme.

Nelson has been providing a safe haven for refugees for 40 years - though, of course, displaced people from other lands have been settling here for far longer. We now host just on 770 refugees and their families, more than half of them Chin or Burmese. It is natural to assume that they will count themselves lucky to be here and in a position to live far better lives than in their places of birth.

Many people are critical of New Zealand's immigration policy and of allowing the number of refugees we do. Immigration is always a controversial subject. In Europe, Britain and Germany have announced that their immigration policies have failed.

All nations consist of peoples who once moved from somewhere else, but we citizens of New Zealand are particularly aware of this. We ought therefore to be more grateful for how much our national heritage owes to incomers. 

Although, on the whole, immigration is both a symptom and a cause of prosperity, some argue it holds back earnings for many Kiwi workers, puts a strain on public services and affects the quality of communal life. However, not everyone wants help or knows how to ask for it, and clearly the sort of trauma some refugees have faced before arriving here leaves deep scars.

Sui's story reminds the rest of us of how lucky we are, living in a paradise that many of us were fortunate to be born into. 

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