Freddy’s family, originally from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), has been subjected to life-threatening conditions due to ethnic tensions and violence, particularly between the Mai Mai forces and the Rwandese rebels.
The family members, including the children, faced severe abuse, forced labor, and threats, leading them to flee their home multiple times.
Eventually the family ended up in Zimbabwe, and Freddy and his family were refugees stuck in the Tongogara Refugee Camp.
The father, Freddy, wrote to Sanctuary, seeking protection and stability and pleading for aid in securing a safe and permanent future for their children in Australia.
Sanctuary sponsored them under the Humanitarian 202 visa program, knowing that the application had very small chance of success, due to the large numbers of refugee applications.
Refugee children cannot attend school if their parents cannot pay, and the family had no way to cover the cost of the children’s education in Zimbabwe. With the help of donors and a grant from the Amaroo Foundation, Sanctuary supported their education through the Sanctuary School Aid Program.
Luckily, they were recently accepted for resettlement in the USA! The basic education that they have received has helped them to adjust to their new country and school much more easily than they would have done otherwise.
Shortly after their arrival in the USA, the Trump administration shut the door on refugees, even those who were processed and ready to depart, leaving thousands stranded in despair, abandoned at the moment they had dared to hope for a new life.
Freddy and his family are very grateful that they are now safe and can look forward to a good life for their children!
“Thank you for your message, you are our angels. May God bless you more and more. We are in South Carolina, in a beautiful house; all the children are going to school. This is a beginning of a new life we are living. God is good madam. We had a good welcome here.
Freddy Luboya, 2024
Now it will be possible to meet you one day. Thank you and thank you for everything. The children are at school now.”