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Difficult doesn’t begin to describe Quyn Le’s desperate childhood escape from war-torn communist Vietnam to an Indonesian refugee camp and, ultimately, Canada.

Nor does thankful begin to express her feelings now, as the once shy little blind girl destined for a beggar’s life in Saigon prepares to receive her master’s degree in counselling psychology at Simon Fraser University this month.

“It seems like a dream sometimes,” admits Le, recalling her family’s arduous getaway and her life since then. “But not a nightmare,” she adds quickly.

“Because we’re actually very lucky and grateful to be here.”

Blinded at age two in a culture where disabled people get just five years of schooling, often ending up “selling lottery tickets, which is little more than begging,” says Le, her parents were determined to give her a better life elsewhere.

After one failed attempt that left her father in jail for six months and in Vietnam until years later, nine-year-old Le and her mother and older sister escaped in 1989 on a rickety, overcrowded vessel with 100 other “boat people.”

Their grueling 10-day voyage, during which Thai pirates robbed them and raped several women onboard, ultimately landed them at Indonesia’s Galang Island refugee camp for four years with 20,000 other refugees.

The Salvation Army finally sponsored their resettlement to Hamilton, Ont., in 1994 and Le spent the next four years at the W. Ross Macdonald School for the blind in nearby Brantford.

She was initially denied university entrance because of her poor English so Le polished her language skills earning a two-year college diploma and then tried again.

This time, McMaster University said yes and she breezed through a BA in psychology before heading to SFU where her intelligence, positive attitude and warmth quickly charmed the entire counselling psychology program in the Faculty of Education.

“She’s a gifted student and an amazing person who will make an excellent counsellor,” says SFU counselling psychology assistant professor, Natalee Popadiuk.

“I’ve never seen anyone with so many things against them become such a success. People love her—and her (guide) dog Nugget.”

So what’s next for Le? “Well,” she says, “I really hope to fulfill my life-long dream of making a difference in people's lives as a counsellor, helping them ease their emotional struggles.”

For a listing of students graduating from communities throughout B.C. see: http://at.sfu.ca/LJEIFo

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