ORAL HISTORY:Yusuf Bulbulia INTERPRETIVE TEAM: Cassandra Kist, Anna England, Jessica Svenningson.

Helping and Healing

Mulugeta Abai was forced to flee his home in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in the early 1980s. Due to his support for education in Ethiopia and his status as a teacher, Mulugeta was targeted by a Junta government. In 1983, he was accepted as a refugee in Canada, yet upon his arrival he had difficulty obtaining employment, he spent seven years away from his family and he even experienced being homeless for a few weeks in Toronto. Motivated by many of these factors, Mulugeta began working at Culture Link (formerly Host Program) and moved to the Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture and eventually became its Executive Director. Mulugeta suggests that by using his understanding of the psychological, physical and spiritual suffering that victims of torture undergo to help others, he in turn has found a form of self healing.