By CASEY NEILL
“I FEEL like Australia gave me a chance, gave me an opportunity to become someone.”
Springvale’s Richard Lim fled Cambodia 34 years ago and has since worked tirelessly to help people in need.
“I feel very fortunate to come to this country. I cherish every moment of my time,” he said.
“I feel like I have to help these unfortunate people, not just locally but internationally as well.”
He was today awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for service to the community through a range of social welfare organisations in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List.
Dandenong identities Carma Keast and Margo Hartley were also among 354 OAM recipients across the country.
“I’d just come back from Cambodia for a conference. I opened the mail and what a surprise!” he said.
The conference held late last month was designed to improve the Cambodian pharmacy system.
“I think I contributed something to my country,” he said.
It was also the first time Mr Lim had taken a good look around his former homeland since escaping to Australia in 1980.
“I’m like a stranger after nearly 40 years. It looks different. You could not recognise it,” he said.
“I felt very emotional.”
Mr Lim’s family had been all but wiped out when he fled Cambodia after enduring years of torture and starvation in refugee camps.
He’d studied pharmacy in Cambodia for two years but had to start from scratch in his new home, with his high school certificate.
For two years he attended high school classes from 8.30am to 3.30pm and worked from 4pm to 12.30pm to support himself, his brother and sister.
He went on to pharmacy school and in 1991 opened Lim’s Pharmacy in Springvale.
“All my customers are like my family,” he said.
In April last year his pharmacy took out the Pharmacy of the Year award and the community engagement category in the national Quality Care Pharmacy Program awards.
He celebrated the award win with a charity concert to thank the community and raised $40,000 for Cambodia Vision.
Last year Mr Lim also supported a Save Cambodian Children Fund project to build a school in Cambodia’s west, between two villages.
It opened in January and means students no longer have to trek 30 kilometres to learn.
“We need to raise money to pay to the school teacher now,” he said.
Mr Lim is the Cambodian Association of Victoria vice-president, founded Cambodian Youth Association of Victoria in 1981 and is the group’s president, and is the chairman and president of Cambodian Vision Victoria and Cambodian Educational Network Inc.
He’s been a member and adviser for the Khmer Community of Victoria since 1980 and is involved with orphan and children’s funds, women’s societies, friendship groups, Chinese and Philippine associations, temples and Springvale’s Multicultural Men’s Shed.
He’s received Victoria’s Multicultural Award for Excellence and a Paul Harris Fellow from Rotary International, is a justice of the peace and regularly speaks and advises on pharmaceutical and health services.
“This award will give me more strength to go on,” Mr Lim said.
See pages 6 and 7 for more on Greater Dandenong’s OAM recipients.
