Learning To Live Irena's Empowering Refugees

How She’s Using Her Own Personal Experience to Help

- Fleur Guthrie

Irena Madjar’s first job was picking eggplants from six- foot-high prickly stalks while living in a refugee camp in Italy.

She was 15 and her family had escaped the former Yugoslavia − “where education and employment depended on towing the communist party line” − with no idea where they would end up.

Almost two years later, in 1965, they left the camp, sailing from Europe to New Zealand, arriving in Palmerston North not knowing anyone or speaking any English.

Irena (70) went on to be a nursing professor and academic researcher, and is now using both her retirement and personal experiences to support young women from refugee backgrounds wanting to attend university in New Zealand.

She smiles, agreeing that her life has indeed come full circle.

“When I share a little bit of my story with these students, they realise, ‘Oh, she understands what we’re going through,’” says Irena, who also coordinates a support programme for recipients of the Sir Robert Jones Refugee Daughters’ Scholarship, administered by Refugees as Survivors (RASNZ).

“Being stuck in a refugee camp was hugely stressful for my family. And this was without fleeing a violent war situation.”

When the Madjars came to Manawatu, there was no resettlement centre or state housing available. The region was also very “mono-cultural” at the time.

Fortunately, the Christian family were sponsored by a local church, which rented a house for them and filled it with donated second-hand furniture.