By Wesa Chau
MELBOURNE - Garang Dut, once a near-penniless Sudanese refugee, proudly took his place alongside 335 other students at Melbourne University’s prestigious medical department this month to begin a degree course to fulfil his dream of becoming a doctor.
Garang, who will be 24-years-old in August, is the first African refugee to be accepted as a medical student at the university and he is determined to succeed so that fewer people will have to suffer the health problems and deprivation of life in a refugee camp.
Born in strife-torn Southern Sudan, Garang spent his childhood in dire poverty in refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya.
“Health was always a problem there,” he says. “There were only limited resources and few persons knew how to properly administer drugs…Water facilities and sanitation was poor , compounded by a growing refugee population. Health was a luxury in the camps.”
Garang’s first attended school in Kenya where he learned English in classrooms so crowded “we wrote while sitting on the floor.” But he was determined to succeed and duly won scholarships and prizes of books and writing instruments to take him through primary grades and high schools.
He arrived in Australia in 2005 together with his mother, an elder sister and two younger brothers. Garang’s father remained in Sudan. His sister, Achok, now 27, is married while bothers Geo, 13, and Choi, 16, are both at Braybrook College.
Garang threw himself into his studies in his adopted country - starting in year 10 at Sunshine College but soon went to year 11. After obtaining his VCE he took a Bachelor of Biomedical Science Degree at Monash University -- despite travelling up to three hours back and forth from the family’s then home in Sunshine..
He now lives in St. Albans with his mother and two brothers while sister Achok lives with her husband in Werribee.
Garang says he found it hard to shrug off the stereotype of a destitute refugee. “When I arrived, they believed I was incapable of undertaking difficult subjects like physics, chemistry and English.”
He proved the doubters wrong, not only scoring exceptionally well in VCE, but winning several awards and was named 2007 Kwong Lee Dow young scholar by Melbourne University.
In fact Garang is now regarded as a role model for the 6,000 Sudanese refugees in Melbourne.
Professor Geoff McColl, director of the medical education unit at the Melbourne Medical School says Garang “has dealt with adversity early in his life but he has been able to achieve extraordinary things.”
“The pathway he has followed is incredible,” says McColl. “His journey in isolation through so many refugee camps while still being able to maintain academic standards, is exemplary.”
Prof. McColl says that Garang “comes across as a quiet, thoughtful, polite young man. He doesn’t say much - but what he says makes a lot of sense.
“His story shows strength, will and determination and also that no barrier is so great that cannot be overcome.”
