Q & A: London Platinum Jubilee award recipient Nhiall Deng

Western University undergraduate student Nhiall Deng is a recipient of Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee Award for his significant contributions to community. Deng grew up in a refugee camp in Kenya from the age of 11 after his family had to flee their home in Ethiopia. There he created a space for other young refugees to exchange views and experiences that led to his humanitarian activism, consulting, writing, work with the United Nations, and a scholarship to study at Huron University College.

Deng spoke with CBC London Morning host Rebecca Zandbergen about his work and life experiences.

The following has been edited for clarity.

RZ: It's been quite a journey to get to this point. You lived in a refugee camp for many years. Tell me a little bit about that time and how it transformed your life.

ND: At the beginning it was very challenging. When I got to the refugee camp, the first thing that came in my mind was to go to school. School gave me a space to be able to heal from the trauma that I witnessed as a child having to flee conflict and war, having to see my own village being burned down in Ethiopia. I was able to find solace and hope in school, and through storytelling was able to connect with other kids and learning about the challenges they face. That was the beginning of my community work.

RZ: What is the main thrust of your activism work that you do? What are you hoping to achieve?

ND: One is to ensure that as a global community we work together toward finding solutions for people who have been forced to flee their homes. There are 100 million displaced people from across the world. These are not just statistics. (Each) is a human being with hope, with dreams, with aspiration. We just want nothing but a place where they can live in peace and and have access to human dignity and be able to achieve their full potential. 

It's very important that every single day we ask ourselves, 'What can I do to find solutions to these challenges in my community?' I do a lot of that work in encouraging people to ask themselves that question every single day, be finding solutions to the climate emergency, finding solutions to challenges in our own communities -- homelessness, gender-based violence. We see those challenges all around us and sometimes I feel like people see that (and say), 'Oh, you know, it's politicians who should do this or an organization should do this', but everyone has a role to play.

RZ: You tell people that you are first and foremost a storyteller. Why is that?

ND: I think it's because histories help human beings connect... I always tell people, 'If you want to hear about refugees, don't go to a politician, don't go to the media -- go to your next-door neighbour (who) was a refugee... go to someone who've been going through these challenges with mental health.' Sometime we see that there's so many different barriers ...but I think we actually connect with people through stories. We can see there's so many things that bring us together better than things that separate.

RZ: Where do you find the drive? Where does it come from?

ND: I see that I have a responsibility to these challenges around my community. Growing up in the refugee camp, I see people being forced to flee their homes, come to the refugee camp with nothing but (who) work, work, work hard and build their life and see themselves as people who can find solutions. I think that is what drives me - that ability that we all have so much power within ourselves to find solutions to challenges, to spread the culture of care to people around us, to create and spread the culture of empathy in our own communities.