Refugee Week 2025: Finding Freedom – Diversity in Community

Refugee Week is Australia’s peak annual activity to promote greater awareness of refugees, the issues they face, and the contributions refugees are making to the Australian community.

To live without the fear of war, to have your basic human rights upheld, to live in equality and without the fear of persecution are just some of the examples of what freedom can entail. Every day millions of people across the world embark on dangerous journeys for the sole purpose of finding safety and freedom. From Australia to nations across the globe, settling into a new environment after experiencing the perils of a refugee’s journey can also provide the opportunity to live, to love and to dream.

Refugee Week runs from Sunday 15 June to Saturday 21 June.

Updated June 1, 2025
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Wyndham Library
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Across Mountains, Land and Sea: ; One Boy's Extraordinary Journey
Azadi, Arman.
Arman is just a boy when he is forced to leave his home and embark on the most extraordinary journey. Separated from family and friends, he travels across mountains, land and sea to find refuge. After encountering bandits, war and wolves, and surviving a hazardous boat crossing, he arrives at...
Between Two Worlds
Norek, Olivier
Paper Book
**A Times 19 Best Books of 2024** **A Financial Times Best Summer Book of 2024** ** A Times 10 Best Crime and Mystery Books of 2024 so far** "A police procedural unlike anything else in contemporary crime fiction" Sunday...
Bhutan to Blacktown : losing everything and finding Australia
Dhungel, Om
Paper Book
I lost my possessions, my salary, my status, my career, my country. And in that fall, I gained everything. Bhutan is known as the land of Gross National Happiness, a Buddhist Shangri-La hidden in the Himalayas. But in the late 1980s, Bhutan waged a brutal ethnic-cleansing...
Cactus pear for my beloved
Sabawi, Samah
Paper Book
Samah Sabawi shares the story of her parents and many like them who were born as their parents were being forced to leave their homelands. Filled with love for land, history, peoples it is more than anything else a family story and a love story told with enormous humanity and feeling....
The crappiest refugee
Le, Hung
Paper Book
'One thing I really regret is that I can't hold a grown up, intellectual, spiritual conversation in my own language but I can order a meal in Vietnamese with an Australian accent. So embarrassment. What I regret most...is that I can't squat. Maybe the Minister Of Culture was right and I...
Disquiet
Livaneli, Zülfü
Paper Book
World Literature Today- Notable Translation of the Year PopMatters- Best Book of the Year From the internationally bestselling author of Serenade for Nadia, a powerful story of love and faith amidst the atrocities committed by ISIS against the Yazidi people...
Father of the lost boys
Alaak, Yuot A
Paper Book
During the Second Sudanese Civil War, thousands of South Sudanese boys were displaced from their villages or orphaned in attacks from northern government troops. Many became refugees in Ethiopia. There, in 1989, teacher and community leader Mecak Ajang Alaak assumed care of the Lost Boys in a bid to...
Freedom, only freedom : the prison writings of Behrouz Boochani
Boochani, Behrouz
Paper Book
Over six years of imprisonment in Australia's offshore migrant detention centre, the Kurdish-Iranian journalist and writer Behrouz Boochani bore personal witness to the suffering and degradation inflicted on him and his fellow refugees, culminating eventually in his prize-winning book - No Friend...
Freeing my family : one Uyghur man's epic battle to save his wife and son and bring them to Australia
Abdusalam, Sadam
Paper Book
The remarkable true story of a father who moved heaven and earth to help his wife and son escape Chinese persecution and bring them to safety in Australia.
The happiest refugee : the extraordinary true story of a boy's journey from starvation at sea to becoming one of Australia's best-loved comedians
Do, Anh
Paper Book
The laugh-out-loud, reach-for-your-hanky story of one of Australia's best-loved comedians - the national bestseller.
In my mother's footsteps : a Palestinian refugee returns home
Halaby, Mona
'Beautiful. Poignant. Phenomenal...I cried and I smiled...Truly a gem.' Goodreads reviewer A moving and heartbreaking journey of a daughter discovering her Palestinian roots and recovering her mother's beloved past. Perfect for fans of The Bookseller of Kabul...
The last million : Europe's displaced persons from World War to Cold War
Nasaw, David
Paper Book
After WWII, millions of lost and homeless POWs, slave labourers, political prisoners, and concentration camp survivors overwhelmed Germany. Soldiers attempted to repatriate them, but after exhaustive efforts there remained over a million displaced persons who had no home to which to return. The...
Lucky ones, the
Ham, Melinda
Paper Book
The Lucky Ones is a moving and meticulously researched book of refugee stories from award-winning journalist and former foreign correspondent Melinda Ham. Though they are from different generations, countries and cultures, the families in this book all have one thing in common:...
My name is Tani : one boy's journey from refugee to chess champion : a true story
Adewumi, Tani
Paper Book
In their escape from Boko Haram's reign of terror in Nigeria, Tani's family's journey to the United States was nothing short of a miracle. Then 8-year-old Tani started competing with his public school in the ultra-exclusive chess clubs of New York City - and winning. A true story of sacrificing...
My road from Damascus : a memoir
Saeed, Jamal
Paper Book
Saeed chronicles modern Syria from the 50s up to his escape to Canada in 2016, recounting its descent from a country of potential to a pawn of cynical and corrupt powers. It paints a picture of village life, his rebellion as a young Marxist and evolution into a free thinker, living in hiding as a...
No friend but the mountains : writing from Manus prison
Boochani, Behrouz
Audiobook
Nujeen : one girl's incredible journey from war-torn Syria in a wheelchair
Mustafa, Nujeen
Paper Book
Prize-winning journalist and the co-author of smash New York Times bestseller I Am Malala, Christina Lamb, now tells the inspiring true story of another remarkable young hero: Nujeen Mustafa, a teenager born with cerebral palsy, whose harrowing journey from war-ravaged Syria to Germany in a...
Out of exile : the abducted and displaced people of Sudan
Walzer, Craig
Paper Book
Millions of people have fled from conflicts and persecution in all parts of the Northeast African country of Sudan, and many thousands more have been enslaved as human spoils of war. Here, in their own words, men and women recount life before their displacement and the reasons for their flight,...
The pianist of Yarmouk
Ahmad, Aeham
Paper Book
One morning on the outskirts of Damascus, two starving friends are walking through their desolate city and come across a familiar street that has been turned to rubble, concrete bridges towering above them like tombs and houses turned inside out. Aeham turns to the only comfort he has left and sits...
The power of hope
Karapanagiotidis, Kon
Paper Book
A powerful, inspiring memoir from Kon Karapanagiotidis, founder of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, which argues that by putting community, love and compassion at the centre of our lives, we have the power to change our world. 'I hope you take from this book the message that we all...
Rebel : my escape from Saudi Arabia to freedom
Mohammed, Rahaf
Paper Book
A gripping memoir of bravery and sacrifice by a young woman whose escape from her abusive family and an oppressive culture in Saudi Arabia captivated the world  In early 2019, after three years of careful planning, Rahaf Mohammed finally escaped her abusive family in Saudi Arabia--but...
Refugee stories : in their own words
Nowell, Laurie
The world is facing the largest human displacement crisis in history with more than 68 million people forced to leave their homes because of violence, conflict or persecution. Each year Australia accepts around 18,000 refugees through the United Nation's humanitarian settlement programs. Many of the...
I Remember Fallujah : A Novel
Hunter, Adriana
Paper Book
In this poignant first novel of memory, identity, and generational trauma, a child of political refugees tries to uncover the past his dying father kept secret, painting a powerful, layered portrait of Iraq from the 1950s to the 2000s. As a young man in the early 1970s, Rami fled...
Run For Your Life: ; The remarkable true story of a family forced into hiding after leaking Russian secrets
Williams, Sue.
Paper Book
The remarkable true story of a family forced into hiding after leaking Russian secrets What started out as a great adventure turned into a terrifying nightmare when Nick Stride and his family were forced to flee for their lives from one of the richest, most powerful...
Safe Haven
Chandran, Shankari.
Paper Book
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKPEOPLE FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025 SHORTLISTED FOR THE DAVITT AWARD FOR ADULT FICTION  A SHAMELESS BOOK CLUB PICK AN AUSTRALIAN WOMEN'S WEEKLY GREAT READ ...
A small town in Ukraine : the place we came from, the place we went back to
Wasserstein, Bernard
Paper Book
'A fine and deeply affecting work of history and memoir' Philippe Sands Decades ago, the historian Bernard Wasserstein set out to uncover the hidden past of the town forty miles west of Lviv where his family originated: Krakowiec (Krah-KOV-yets). In this book he...
Still alive notes from Australia's immigration detention system
Ahmed, Safdar
Paper Book
In early 2011, Safdar Ahmed visited Sydney's Villawood Immigration Detention Centre for the first time. He brought pencils and sketchbooks into the centre and started drawing with the people detained there. Their stories are told in this book.Interweaving journalism, history and autobiography, Still...
They cannot take the sky : stories from detention
Neville, Angelica
Paper Book
Revealing, moving and confronting accounts of the reality of life in mandatory detention by those who've experienced it.
The ungrateful refugee
Nayeri, Dina
Paper Book
A Finalist for the 2019 Kirkus Prize in Nonfiction "Nayeri combines her own experience with those of refugees she meets as an adult, telling their stories with tenderness and reverence." --The New York Times Book Review "Nayeri weaves her empowering personal story...
Unknown : a refugee's story
Anyieth, Akuch Kuol
Paper Book
A moving, confronting and ultimately uplifting story about a young girl's escape, with her family, from war-torn South Sudan to Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, and then to Australia. In 1996, when Akuch Kuol Anyieth is five, her mother flees to Kakuma with her children, intent on finding...
We are displaced : my journey and stories from refugee girls around the world
Yousafzai, Malala
Paper Book
Nobel Peace Prize winner and New York Times bestselling author Malala Yousafzai turns the faceless statistics and endless news stories about displacement into real people, introducing a small fraction of the millions worldwide who have fled home in this powerful...
What We Remember Will Be Saved : A Story of Refugees and the Things They Carry
Saldana, Stephanie
Paper Book
2023 Christopher Award Winner 2024 Excellence in Religion Reporting Award Winner for Nonfiction Eggplant seeds, a lullaby in a vanishing language, an embroidered dress. When people flee their homes, the things they save speak of beauty and suffering and the indomitable human spirit....

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