SUDANESE refugee Bol Deng has been living in Castlemaine since August last year and he is loving every minute of it.
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He works at KR Castlemaine as a machine operator, is a basketball player with Bendigo Basketball Association's Raiders and is planning to bring his wife, daughter and three sons from Melbourne in August.
But things did not come easy for Mr Deng.
At the age of nine and in the middle of a civil war in Sudan, he was forced to flee his village of Awil and was separated from his family.
He sought shelter at a refugee camp in the country's capital, Khartoum.
"The war was very bad and many villages were attacked," he said.
"At the camp when it was night-time, everybody played basketball, so I started as well."
He joined the Catholic Action Club, an equivalent to the YMCA, played basketball on a regular basis and at 17, joined the Sudan National Basketball Team, playing against other African countries.
"Only Muslims could play in the Sudan team and I wasn't a Muslim; I'm Catholic," he said.
"But because I was such a good player, they let me play."
However, Mr Deng said that before the start of a basketball game, he made the sign of the cross.
"The officials didn't like it and warned me to never do it again; that's when I knew I had to leave."
Now 32, Mr Deng, along with 72 other refugees, calls Castlemaine home.
As part of celebrating Refugee Week, Castlemaine's Theatre Royal screened the feature-length documentary Lost Boys of Sudan on Tuesday night.