Leaving their war-torn homeland, Rebecca Luk and her children moved to Melbourne in 2003, spending five years looking for a safer environment to raise a family.

In February last year Rebecca moved to Mildura with her children Elizabeth Pur, 14, Changkouth, 7, and Nyantut, 3.

Although they knew Mildura was the ideal place to live, it was still a long time before the family finally settled down.

They were first put in a crisis property before moving to transitional housing for three months, and then lived in public housing before finally being moved to their current home, an affordable housing property.

Elizabeth said it had been hard to move so much but they were finally happy and settled.

“We’re happy here and there’s much better people in this neighbourhood,” she said. “It feels like home.

“I want to be here the rest of my life.

“Most of the people help us a lot, which is really good. It wasn’t like that in Melbourne, nobody helped.

“The housing people in Melbourne wouldn’t give us a new place when we asked to move.

For more of this story, purchase your copy of Saturday’s Sunraysia Daily 21/11/2009.