{"id":39810,"date":"2021-12-15T01:30:03","date_gmt":"2021-12-14T16:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/dec\/15\/inspiration-not-charity-how-refugees-from-bhutan-thrived-in-blacktown"},"modified":"2021-12-15T01:30:03","modified_gmt":"2021-12-14T16:30:03","slug":"inspiration-not-charity-how-refugees-from-bhutan-thrived-in-blacktown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=39810","title":{"rendered":"Inspiration, not charity: how refugees from Bhutan thrived in Blacktown"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Refugees are not vulnerable they just need help to play to their strengths, says Om Dhungel, a \u2018Blacktown boy\u2019 from Bhutan<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Read the rest of our series <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/australia-news\/series\/welcome-to-blacktown\">Welcome to Blacktown<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When I meet Om Dhungel in a cafe near his home, he tells me about Merryn Howell. \u201cShe is my godmother,\u201d he says, his eyes shining. \u201cEvery day I remember her.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Howell (then Jones) was a skilled migrant placement officer. Dhungel was a refugee of Nepalese ancestry from the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, where he had been an engineer and a senior public servant at the Department of Telecommunications.<\/p>\n<p>Om Dhungel in his home in Blacktown, Western Sydney.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/dec\/15\/inspiration-not-charity-how-refugees-from-bhutan-thrived-in-blacktown\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Refugees are not vulnerable they just need help to play to their strengths, says Om Dhungel, a \u2018Blacktown boy\u2019 from BhutanRead the rest of our series Welcome to BlacktownWhen I meet Om Dhungel in a cafe near his home, he tells me about Merryn Howell. \u201c&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2734,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[43,388,1786,241,355],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-australia-news","category-australian-immigration-and-asylum","category-bhutan","category-nepal","category-sydney"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2734"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39810"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39811,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39810\/revisions\/39811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}