The Lost Boys Give Back

The Lost Boys of Sudan are a group of thousands of young men from Sudan who fled the violence of their villages and lived in refugee camps for years before they were relocated to the United States, Australia, and other nations. After the cease-fire in 2005, many of them are looking homeward, and using the education and skills they've learned to help those who remain in Sudan.

After government troops destroyed his village in 1987, John Bul Dau walked for five years to reach the Kukuma refugee camp in Kenya. Nine years later, he was selected to come to Syracuse, New York with a group of Lost Boys. There, he worked as a security guard, attended college, sponsored the immigration of his surviving family members, married, and had two children. Dau was featured in the 2006 documentary God Grew Tired of Us about his journey, and wrote a book about it, called God Grew Tired of Us: A Memoir. He organized the the Sudanese Lost Boys of New York Foundation to help with the educational expenses of other Sudanese refugees. In 2007, Dau established the John Dau Foundation working to provide healthcare to southern Sudan in the form of clinics and training for health care workers.

Salva Dut fled his village of Tonj in southwestern Sudan in 1985, when he was eleven years old. In 1990 he led a group of younger refugees to the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, where he lived for six years. Dut came to Rochester, New York in 1996. When he learned that his father was alive in 2002, Dut went back to Sudan. He found his father ill from disease and water-borne parasites. After resettling his father in a healthier town, Dut confronted the lack of clean water in Sudan and founded Water for Sudan in 2004. He now spends half his time overseeing the organization's efforts to drill safe wells in southern Sudan and the other half of his time working on a degree in international business in the US.

Jok Kuol Wel, Ajang Bol, Duot Aguer, and Chau Thon are a group of Lost Boys who banded together to found HELPSudan International in 2005. The group's first project in 2006 was to establish a school in the community of Bor to serve 400 students. They are in the process of raising funds for a permanent building for the school. See an interview with founders Bol and Wel at YouTube.

Emmanuel Jal doesn't know his exact age, but he knows he became a soldier at around seven or eight years old. His family fled their village when it was destroyed. After his mother died, he was rounded up and taken to Ethiopia, where he was schooled for a while then conscripted into the Sudan People's Liberation Army. After months of fighting, Jal ran off with some other children. British aid worker Emma McCune took Jal under her protection and sent him to Nairobi, Kenya where he could attend school. Jal was around eleven years old when she smuggled him aboard a plane out of Sudan. McCune adopted Jal in 1993, but was killed in an auto accident not long after. Jal began singing while a student in Kenya and became nationally known for his music. International fame came after Jal performed at Live 8: Africa Calling in 2005. His life is the subject of the book War Child: A Child Soldier's Story, and a documentary film called War Child. Now living in England, Jal went on to establish the organization GUA Africa which works to open schools in Sudan and Kenya. You can sponsor a child's education through GUA Africa. Image by David Shankbone.

Samuel Garang Mayuol was five years old in 1987 when he fled along with his father to Ethiopia. His father died in the refugee camp there the next year. Mayuol made it to Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya in 1992, where he became friends with Koor Garang and Gabriel Deng. He survived malaria and was brought to Elgin, Illinois in 2001. Mayuol discovered his mother to be alive in 2004, but couldn't travel to see her until the 2007 trip featured in the movie Rebuilding Hope. He was greeted as a hero in his village of Lang. He then began the Lang Water Project in collaboration with Deng's organization and worked with Salva Dut's organization to bring clean water to Lang and Ariang and to combat drought during the dry season and disease during the rainy season.

James Lubo Mijak came the US in 2001 and settled in Charlotte, North Carolina. He received his degree in international studies from UNC Charlotte in 2008. He wants to build a school in his hometown of Nyarweng in southern Sudan through a project called Raising Sudan. Ngor Kur Mayol is another Lost Boy from Atlanta, Georgia who co-founded the project with Mijak in order to build a school in his native home of Aliap. Mayol also founded Sudan Rowan in collaboration with St. John's Lutheran Church in Salisbury, North Carolina. Sudan Rowan is an organization in North Carolina pledged to fund Mayol's dream of helping his village to rebuild.

Michael Kuany ran away from his village, Jalle, when government forces attacked. He was around six years old. Kuany walked, along with other refugees, a thousand miles to Ethiopia. He lived in a refugee camp there until civil war forced the refugees back in Sudan in 1991. Kuany walked again with other refugees to Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, where he lived for the next ten years. He jumped at the chance to go the the US in 2001, where he got his GED and then studied political science and international studies in college. Kuany founded Rebuild Sudan in 2005. The organization is in the process of building a school for around 400 children in Jalle.

This article was inspired by a post at Metafilter.