From learning to read and write by drawing in the sand of a Kenyan refugee camp, to establishing a successful legal career, Sunshine’s Kot Monoah has come a long way since fleeing his war-torn Sudanese homeland.
Mr Monoah was last week recognised as Victoria University’s Young Alumni of the year – reward for all his hard work since arriving in Australia in 2004.
He said the recognition was an unexpected surprise.
“It was exciting to win, and very humbling to be recognised by your university,” Mr Monoah said.
“Personally, it does show the reflection that hard work pays off, and I’ve stayed involved with the university in mentoring programs since I graduated, which is very important.”
Mr Monoah completed a bachelor of laws at the university in 2009, and has worked at Slater & Gordon in Sunshine since, specialising in motor accident and workcover claims, as well as helping provide education to young people in juvenile detention, and mentoring high school students.
It is a far cry from his childhood, which was torn apart when civil war broke out in Sudan in 1983 when he was just a year old. The conflict reached his village three years later, and Mr Monoah spent the next three years moving from village to village to avoid the war.
His family fled to Ethiopia in 1989, before briefly returning to Sudan and then eventually making it to a refugee camp in Kenya in 1992. He would spend the next 12 years there, and through all the hardships he learned the value of education.
“There was a lot of uncertainty during that time, living minute by minute, day by day, not knowing what tomorrow holds” he said. “A lot of my generation who lived through all that, we know about those hardships and we aim high because of it.
“I went through a refugee school, we had no pens, no books. We would write in the soil, the teacher would check our work and then we would rub it out and do the next thing. That’s how I learned, that’s how we did our exams … it became all about cramming because we didn’t have books to revise.”
Mr Monoah went on to teach in the refugee camp prior to his family getting a humanitarian visa to Australia.
His message to anyone he meets is to never let hardships get in the way of your goals.
“I never let distractions get in my way,” he said.
