It's World Day for Migrants and Refugees
Today is World Day for Migrants and Refugees. Pope Leo has chosen this year’s message as “Even just one of these children.”
Bhawani was just seven years old when he and his family were forced to flee Bhutan with only what they could carry on their backs. On foot, they walked across the border into Assam, India and into a life of hardship and deprivation. Not long after they arrived in Goldhap Refugee Camp in Nepal, Bhawani lost his hearing. Without access to medical care, there was no diagnosis or effective treatment. He was told the nerves in his ears “had dried up” and there was nothing they could do.
Bhawani’s friends made fun of him and refused to let him play soccer with them anymore, since he couldn’t hear the referee’s whistle. At school, he was teased mercilessly and punished harshly by teachers who didn’t understand he couldn’t hear. He was lost, isolated, and stigmatized.
It was organizations like Caritas Nepal, the Nepal National Association of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, and Save the Children that turned his life around. When Nepali Sign Language classes arrived at the camp, Bhawani was amazed to realize that people could talk with their hands.
Bhawani said, “This was life changing. I knew so few deaf people and thought I was one of the few deaf people in the world, alone in a world of hearing people. Being deaf had cut me off from other people, and it cut me off from the deeper meaning of my culture, music, and events happening around me.” The many Deaf children formed a social group, supported each other, and thrived. The boys formed a soccer league that eventually extended to all seven of the refugee camps in Nepal. When Caritas Nepal started celebrating Disability Day every year, the group found their Deaf Pride. Bhawani went on to become a leader in the Deaf Bhutanese community, and to overcome many obstacles in his journey Down the Braided River, as he grew up in the refugee camps and then was resettled with his family in Concord, New Hampshire. The support these nonprofits provided, at the time he needed it, made all the difference.
