Bhutan to Blacktown

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 campaign against its citizens of Nepali ancestry, including Om Dhungel and his family. Bhutan to Blacktown tells Om Dhungels remarkable story his journey from a remote village to a senior position in the Bhutanese Civil Service to life as a human rights activist in Nepal and, eventually to his work as a community leader in Blacktown western Sydney. Every step prepared Om for the central role he would play in settling more than 5000 Bhutanese refugees in one of the most successful refugee initiatives in Australias history. Written with Walkley Award-winning journalist James Button Bhutan to Blacktown is a story of grit and struggle humour and irrepressible optimism and how losing nearly everything shaped one mans character and fate.