A Story of Resilience

The help stable countries often offer to refugees, usually happens with many challenges. These refugees are usually in flight for their lives from their original countries. The challenges though broadly known, are either misunderstood, assumed or just inadvertently ignored. In this book, Edith Ngene Kambere brings to the fore these challenges as an experience she lived.

In 1985, Edith Kambere's life as she knew it in Uganda, turned for the worse and nearly two years later, started her very treacherous escape to safety from Uganda. In this book, Edith Ngene Kambere, presents her unique yet heart wrenching narrative of experiences she and her family endured while fleeing for their lives. At numerous points in the book, Edith incorporates narratives of raw and unedited agonizing experiences, and encounters many African immigrant women faced during their own flight from war horror, political witch-hunt and many other acts of a dehumanizing nature. Unfortunately, to this day, many immigrants especially women from Africa continue to face similar experiences in their flight from life threatening circumstances.

This book, a must read, provides rarely expressed feelings, excruciating experiences, the author like many other refugees, personally endured together with her family, a five year, two continents and three countries' ordeal of escape into Vancouver Canada where quite frankly, they miraculously reside today. This is a riveting point by point, incident by incident story; experienced and lived by Edith Kambere of a gruelingly and unpredictably risky, scary, and at times dangerous run for their lives. Even after getting to safety in Canada, Edith, narrates the frequently overwhelming and challenging encounters they, just as many other refugees experienced.

This book offers first hand insights Edith and her entire family had to endure, which are life changing and provide practical learning and teaching moments of usually untold nor shared wealth of information. Health Care Providers, Psychologists, Counselors, Social Workers, Community Leaders, Educators, Immigration Officials and Politicians would profoundly benefit from the information and advice Edith presents in this book, during their training and professional practice.
Professor Robert P. Bakibinga

York College of Pennsylvania.


In this Book, Edith Kambere emphasizes that trauma is not just something from the past. It can be re-lived, triggered by events or even comments that take one back into the fear and depression flowing from the original trauma. She has written this book as a kind of therapy not just for herself, but for other women who lived this experience. Telling one's story, and hearing the stories of others with a similar experience, assists in finding a route to a positive focus on the future. Teachers of refugee children need as well to understand the situation of the mothers, of the children the conflicting demands of supporting the children, but also fiding their own route to success in their new country. These teachers should read Kambere's book.
Larry Kuehn, Director of Research, BC Teachers' Federation.