There was something a bit special about John Kamara's visit to Ravenswood Heights Primary School.
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About 20 years after he started a new life in Tasmania, away from war-torn Sierra Leone, the Tasmanian Australian of the Year made a special trip to his former hometown.
This was Mr Kamara's only primary school visit on a long list of engagements for the Tamar Valley Peace Festival.
"It's like a homecoming for me," he said.
Mr Kamara was primary school-aged - about eight or nine - when he and his brother-in-law were captured by rebels.
They escaped and eventually found their way to a refugee camp in Ghana, where they stayed for about four or five years.
Aged 18, he migrated to Tasmania and began adjusting to life in a very different setting.
"Survival for me was no longer running away from guns and weapons - survival was about settling in a new environment and a new culture that was so different," he said.
"There was a bit of culture shock for me when I came to Tasmania.
"It was very cold at first - I had to run [back] into the plane again when I got off the plane.
"I didn't know how to catch the bus, I didn't know how to go the supermarket and obviously I couldn't speak the Australian English - or the Tasmanian English."
There were other challenges too.
"When I came first I was told to go back to where I came from, I had eggs thrown at me. I had a pretty shocking start.
"But I didn't let that [define] who I am - I used that to create my identity and to make change in the community."
GETTING STUCK IN
Mr Kamara began looking for ways to contribute to the community.
He found avenues to volunteer, helping migrants and young people by "giving what I have in me".
He volunteered with music in aged care homes, and worked with ESL teachers and social workers in schools.
Two decades on, his contributions as a practice leader, social worker and humanitarian worker are such that he was named 2023 Tasmanian Australian of the Year.
Speaking in the Ravenswood Primary gym on Tuesday, Mr Kamara encouraged students to look for ways to be kind one another.
"Let's make a conscious decision to contribute to society in a positive way and give back to your community," he said.
"No matter what you're going through or what the circumstance is now, you have a choice to make to create change in the world.
"There's so much going on in the world - lot of conflict a lot of wars, a lot of poverty, anger ... I could have chosen to be an angry boy because of my trauma, but I don't let that hold me back.
"Tasmania and Australia has given me so much - I would never have imagined I would be Tasmanian Australian of the Year as a refugee and with the experience and trauma I've gone through."
FAMILY
Mr Kamara lives in Hobart with his wife and four children.
He met his wife Mavis in his early teens, and they were engaged before he left for Australia.
They married in Ghana after he had completed his mandatory four-year stint in Tasmania.
"[We] met in the refugee camp in Ghana - that's a blessing in disguise," he said.
"She's not a refugee - but I was given an opportunity to go and study in one of the local schools in Ghana and that's where [we] met.
"I was in a refugee camp but I'd walk miles away to the village schools ... she was going to the school there."
Their children are aged 12, 10, seven and 16 months.
"We've been blessed that my kids have had a better education than I had and they call themselves Australians now."
The Tamar Valley Peace Festival concludes on September 23.
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