Phuong Tran had anything but a typical upbringing.

Born in the south of Vietnam shortly after the Vietnam War, her family was subject to stringent food rations and political violence for supporting the American-backed South Vietnam in the conflict.

To escape from the violence and find a better life Mrs Tran’s family boarded an asylum seeker boat with the then three-year-old Mrs Tran and eventually found themselves in Gawler.

But the path to what she now calls “her home town” was anything but easy.

“The boat we were on was intercepted a few times by Thai pirates who were prominent in the waters at the time,” she said.

“Two they could chase off because their boat was bigger than the pirate’s boat, my dad told me the last boat was just too big.

“They had rifles, guns and knives and the boat was too big to escape from.

“They overtook the boat and eventually just dropped us off near the shore of a Thai beach and we ended up in a refugee camp.”

While in the camp, Mrs Tran’s parents discovered a program for Vietnamese refugees fleeing the country after the war, where they would be supported by families and church networks in  Australia.

The family were the last to be accepted in to the particular program, and they set sail for Australia.

Mrs Tran said the family found out they were being sponsored by a group of families and churches in a town they had never heard of – Gawler.

“We came over in 1980 and the church became like an extended family for us, they found us housing, clothing and jobs,” she said.

“They helped all of us with English classes when we first moved here and the Lutheran Kindy’s teachers took their own time to babysit us kids so the parents could learn English and work.

“The closest family to us were Ralph and Heather Oke, Ralph was the minister of the Gawler Uniting Church. \

“We ended up adopting them as family, still to this day I call her (Heather) ‘bà ngoai’, which means grandmother in Vietnamese.”

Mrs Tran was one of more than 2100 Vietnamese people who came to Australia as a refugee following the Vietnam War.

Tomorrow is the United Nations’ World Refugee Day, aimed at fostering worldwide solidarity with refugees.

Mrs Tran said she is “extremely grateful” for what the town has given to her and her family after the former life they escaped.

“My father straight away accepted Australia as our country, he loved it and took it all in,” she said.

“It’s been absolutely beautiful, I see Gawler as my home town now.”