After 'gang' uproar, Sudanese-Australians set to tackle crime – and bias

Kot Monoah sits with an iced drink in a cafe in Sunshine, Australia, remembering his first years in the “Lucky Country.” 

Today, Mr. Monoah is a successful lawyer, the chair of Victoria state’s South Sudanese Community Association. And the suburb of Sunshine itself is a testament to the Sudanese community’s influence, which radiates out from recently-constructed restaurants and African beauty shops.

But it hasn’t been easy. Monoah, who arrived as a refugee in 2004, knows the struggle firsthand. “I would say probably I worked two to three times [harder go get] what any other person with connections would have got,” he says, recalling countless rejected applications.

In the last two months, these western suburbs of Melbourne have found themselves under intense scrutiny after a spate of crimes by African-Australian teens, many born in war-torn South