Niborom Young with three women

This photograph was taken at the Wellington Civic Awards event held by Wellington City Council on 24 March 1995. At the event, Niborom Young (in the centre) was awarded for her service to the Cambodian community, and other ethnic groups in Wellington. The accompanying certificate notes that Niborom was 'counsellor, mediator and friend ... creating a welcoming refuge for people from other lands' (Honourable Fran Wilde, Mayor of Wellington, 24 March 1995). To the left is her son, Chester Young, and to the right is her husband, Victor Young.

Niborom Young (née Oum) was born in Phnom Penh, Cambodia in 1947. She arrived in New Zealand as a Colombo Plan student in November 1974 after being offered a place on an English-teaching course at Victoria University in Wellington. However, at that time Cambodia was in a state of civil war and her city was shelled constantly. She didn’t want to leave her husband, children, mother, and siblings, but her mother told her to seize the opportunity.

Just weeks later, the war escalated, and Cambodia’s borders closed. The New Zealand Government gave permanent residence to Cambodians stranded here. Unable to get news of her family, Niborom was devastated.

In 1980, when Niborom worked as an interpreter in a refugee camp on the Thai–Cambodian border, she heard they were all dead. Later, she discovered that her son and one sister had survived, and arranged for them to live in New Zealand.

Niborom has been a teacher of English as a second language, a refugee and migrant counsellor, and Khmer interpreter. She is a Justice of the Peace, and honoured with the Queen’s Service Medal for her contribution to the Cambodian community.

The scars of war never really heal, but remarried, Niborom has built a new life with her husband and son. In 2015, Niborom published a collection of oral histories: I Tried Not to Cry: The Journeys of Ten Cambodian Refugee Women.