A thousand refugee families across Melbourne have safe and secure homes thanks to the work of former Karen-Burmese refugee, Law Baw.

As a housing worker with migrant and refugee settlement agency AMES Australia, Law Baw helps newly arrived refugee families and individuals navigate the housing market.

This month, after 17 years with AMES, he supported his one thousandth refugee family into affordable and enduring housing.

Law Baw says he feels privileged to be able to support refugees who are following his own journey to Australia. He himself started his life in Australia as a client of AMES.

“I’m happy and to be able to help people start new lives in Australia. I know from my own experience that without accommodation, you can’t plan for the future,” he said.

“Having a secure place of your own means you can focus on other things.

“Accommodation is critical to settling in a new country. And I’m proud to see what many of our clients have achieved despite the difficulties they have faced.

“Many of them have started their own businesses, some of them ended up working for AMES and others in many different areas,” he said.

Law Baw says the work he and his team do is rewarding.

“It’s been hugely rewarding. I have made so many connections with different communities and people from different parts of the world. And many of my clients have become friends,” he said.

Law Baw said he has also built connections in the real estate industry.

“Real estate agents often get a bad rap but the ones we work with are keen to help refugees. They value the fact the refugees are good tenants and now the approach us if they have rental properties available,” he said.

And Law Baw said he had also forged connections with former refugees who had become property owners.

“Many community members have become private landlords who want to offer properties to our newly arrived clients,” he said.

Law Baw says his work is informed by his own lived experience.

“I lived in the so called ‘brown’ area of Myanmar, the Karen homelands that were constantly under threat from the Burmese military,” he said.

“I lived in a small village and one day, when I was 12 years old, I was arrested by the military.

“The military were looking for young adults they could arrest and put into forced labour. When they couldn’t find any adults, they arrested us. We were held in a field in extreme heat until my parents collected us.

“That was the day I decided that I needed to leave Burma,” he said.

Law Baw finally escaped Burma in 2000 aged 19. He fled to Malaysia where he spent eight years living precariously as an undocumented refugee.

“It was a very difficult time in Malaysia. I worked lots of hard jobs just to survive and I lived in shared accommodation with other people from Burma.

“It was also challenging in terms of security because you could be arrested at any time and put in a detention camp,” he said.

In 2005 Law Baw was able to register with the UNHCR as a refugee. He was granted a humanitarian visa by Australia in 2008 and arrived in Melbourne soon after.

“I was initially a client of AMES Australia and then started work for AMES in 2009 as a community guide,” he said.

“After that, I joined the accommodation team and I’m still working with the team.”

Law Baw said that life in Australia has been good him and many other refugees. He now has a family, including two children.

“Two years ago. I met an Afghan family who were staying in our short-term accommodation facility in Werribee. They were grateful to be here, and we helped them with accommodation.

“Then, two weeks ago I was walking around my neighbourhood when someone shouted out to me, ‘hey Law Baw’.

“It was the Afghan man who yelled out. He thanked me for the support AMES had provided and told me he had opening his own business – a grocery store that was doing well.

“It made me think that this is what we want to see. And that what it’s all about is empowering people to build successful new lives,” he said.