A Christian Tamil from Sri Lanka’s west coast, he arrived by boat in Australia in 2013 as a 12-year-old boy with his parents and four siblings, having fled alleged military persecution in the postwar upheaval of his home country.
After more than a year in detention, he was granted a temporary visa. He went to school in Melbourne, he made friends, he built a life and a place in his community. But he was never allowed to feel settled and at home.
For more than a decade, Mano lived with the constant uncertainty of a temporary visa; with the acknowledged unfairness of the flawed “fast-track” process; with the ever-present threat that he would be returned to a homeland he had only known as a child.