Meet The Current's Friday host Nam Kiwanuka
Nam Kiwanuka, a journalist and broadcaster, is very mindful of how refugees are treated. As a child, Kiwanuka and her family escaped Uganda and lived in the Thika refugee camp in Kenya.
"I was about 10 or 11 and we had to leave the civil war in Uganda," Kiwanuka tells The Current's Anna MariaTremonti. She, her father and three siblings trekked from Uganda to the Kenyan border by foot, a distance equal to walking from Toronto to Chicago.
While her life in Toronto wasn't easy — her father turned to drink to deal with the after-effects of the war and became abusive — it's still better than what she lived through.
It just felt like a fairy tale. It really did because I didn't have to hear bombs. I didn't have to hear guns. There was no conflict.- Nam Kiwanuka, a journalist and broadcaster
Kiwanuka tells Tremonti that she feels so much compassion for the refugees coming to Canada.
"I would never of sound mind put my child on a boat with 80 other people unless I was desperate."
"We live in a very privileged country. And if we can share that space with other people, I think we need to do that — we have have to do that."
Listen to the full conversation at the top of this post.