By CASEY NEILL
SPRINGVALE’S Be Ha can’t thank Australia enough for opening its arms and hearts to her family.
“We only hope that you are proud of us,” she said.
On 29 November 1979, Captain Sloan aboard British cargo ship Entalina rescued Ms Ha and almost 150 other Vietnamese refugees from a 12 metre fishing boat and took them to Darwin.
Thousands of others had made the same journey after the Vietnam War ended in 1975.
Ms Ha was instrumental in creating the Vietnamese in Australia: 40 Years of Settlement exhibition to mark the milestone.
It followed a display at Springvale Rise Primary School, where she works in administration, earlier this year and opened at the Immigration Museum in Melbourne on 7 November.
Ms Ha wants the migrants’ descendants to understand their roots and the wider community to understand their story.
“Nobody wants to leave their country,” she said.
“We had to go.
“Little did we know the extent of human decency, kindness and generosity awaiting us.”
Her decision to flee came after her husband, a South Vietnamese infantry lieutenant, returned from two and a half years in a re-education camp.
They didn’t want their children, aged five and six, to grow up in the oppressive communist society.
Thai pirates twice attacked their boat and they were lost at sea for almost a month with no food or water, watching people die around them.
“Every day in the morning I say hello to him,” Ms Ha said of one elderly man, a tear running down her cheek.
“In the morning, the sun was very hot. At night time it was so cold.
“One day when I woke up and talked to him he didn’t answer me. He’d passed away.”
They arrived in Darwin on 4 December 1979 and moved into Springvale’s Enterprise Hotel on 11 February 1980.
“We were so grateful how Australia welcomed us and provided us with a second chance in life,” Ms Ha said.
“All we wanted to do was be successful in integrating into the Australian society and become productive citizens.”
Ms Ha and her husband worked multiple jobs.
“Our drive and hard work was for the children to have a better future,” she said.
“Seeing them fitting into the Australian society, doing well at school and just simply being children and having a normal childhood was the ultimate dream.
“Gratitude towards Australia and its people drove me to wanting to repay Australia and the Australian society and people.”
She established non-profit welfare organisation Springvale Indochinese Mutual Assistance Association (SICMAA) in 1982 and is today its president.
She helped to found Hoa Nghiem Temple in Springvale, is treasurer for the Vietnamese Cultural Heritage Centre and the Vietnam War Memorial at Dandenong RSL, and raises money for the Royal Children’s Hospital Good Friday Appeal.
She’s also actively involved in Lions Club of Melbourne Vietnamese and the Vietnamese Community in Australia’s Victorian chapter.
Vietnamese in Australia: 40 Years of Settlement is on display until 30 June at the Immigration Museum, 400 Flinders Street, Melbourne.
Phone 131 102 for more information.
