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NEWS ABOUT THE LOST BOYS AND LOST GIRLS OF SUDAN |
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At the University of Connecticut, the wait is over for a "warrior from Africa." See this recent sports story about Ater Majok in the New York Times Sports Sunday.
The Nashville International Airport, in conjunction with the Lost Boys Foundation of Nashville, Inc., is showcasing an exhibit of artwork by Sudanese refugees who have settled in the city. The artwork will be on display in Concourse A of the airport through April 2009. "The Lost Boys have a powerful story to tell, and we are honored to share art reflective of their homeland and journey..." Raul Regalado, president and CEO of the Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority, said in a press release.
The Lost Boys Foundation of Nashville, a nonprofit organization, was started in 2004 by photographer Jack Spencer. Through an art studio and gallery, the Lost Boys of Sudan reveal the joys and traumas of their lives in Sudan through paintings, sculptures, and masks.
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"This is a day we will never forget," Majok Reth Chuol told volunteers who dedicated his new Habitat for Humanity home in Louisville on March 28, 2009. Chuol, a student at Jefferson Community College, will share the home with six brothers and nephews. Read "Family finds home in a new world of hope" in The Courier-Journal.
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John Dau, one of the Lost Boys of Sudan who was featured in the documentary, God Grew Tired of Us, established the John Dau Sudan Foundation to build health clinics and train community health workers in his homeland. Dau started three nonprofit organizations, including the Sudanese Lost Boys Foundation of New York and the American Care for Sudan Foundation.
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The 20,000 to 25,000 Sudanese boys who fled the destruction of their families and villages in 1987 did not go alone, Mapendo International reminds us. "Many adults were in that stream of the dispossessed and displaced. So were perhaps 2,000 to 3,000 parentless girls. And while the boys attracted the world's attention (and have settled in America), the girls have been concealed and silenced, often abused, kept as servants or slaves in the United Nations' Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, or sold into forced marriages. They have fallen through the cracks in this resettlement initiative and have been mostly hidden from the UN Office of High Commissioner for Refugees and the State Department's efforts.
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Sudanese refugees in Syracuse, New York are reconnecting to their cultural traditions and raising money for education through an art project initiated at St. Vincent de Paul Church. See some of their work and hear from community members at the Syracuse Post-Standard's web site. Also, hear about folklorist Felicia McMahon's new book, Not Just Child's Play: Emerging Traditions and the Lost Boys of Sudan. Order the book directly from the publisher, or find it online at www.amazon.com or Barnes & Nobles (www.bn.com).
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Kennedy Nakwa, Peter Nakwa, and James Atem are among the Sudanese soccer players featured in this article by Louisville ESL teacher Scott Wade. Read Wade's account of the "stolen moments" in LEO weekly.
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"The Didinga Hills" features a six-minute on-site video of a church-building project based in Nagishot, Sudan. In addition to showing the lush and beautiful forested region of the Didinga Hills, the video also reflects the musical traditions of the Didinga people.
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Louisvillians Helping Save Darfur and the Kentucky Interfaith Task Force on Darfur have worked tirelessly to keep people focused on finding solutions to the genocide in Sudan. The group's Web site (http://louisvilliansfordarfur.org) also maintains a calendar of related events.
Hundreds of people are now drinking clean water in Southern Sudan because of the efforts of Louisville-based Nadus Films and its partner organization, SEED. Future trips to Sudan to assist with water purification, medical needs, education, and church development are being planned. Nadus is wrapping up production of a feature-length documentary, "The New Sudan." See the web blog and photos from the trip at www.nadusfilms.com. |
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"Desmond Yengi remembers each day of the flight from southern Sudan with the clarity of a film spooling endlessly through his head. He was five. His father was dead...Finally, they escaped across the border to Uganda, and lived again in the bush until they were found by the UN." Desmond, a member of the Bari tribe, currently attends Westminster College in Missouri.
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Ater Malath battled for five years to reunite his family by bringing his orphaned siblings from Uganda to Seattle, Washington. Soon all three of his siblings will join Ater in college. See other articles and photos at The Seattle Times.
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Former Lost Boy Peter Gur recently returned home to Sudan to open the first of several planned orphanages sponsored by the New Seed of Hope project. Gur will be the field director at the orphanage in the village of Lachatem in northern Bahr el Ghazal. Read about The New Seed of Sudan, a documentary film project about former Lost Boys who are returning to rebuild south Sudan, and the 127-Clubs, a campaign to build locally maintained orphanages for the estimated 1.7 million parentless children in south Sudan.
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The fragile peace process between south Sudan and the northern Khartoum government is in jeopardy, with fighting breaking out in Abyei and pushing Ngok Dinka farmers farther south. "Here, two worlds collide and two governments compete for territory inch by inch; under that ground lies as much as half of Sudan's estimated five billions of oil," The New York Times reports. Diplomat Roger Winter has spent two decades fighting for peace in Sudan and says, "The future of Abyei is the future of all Sudan." See "The Man for a New Sudan" in The New York Times Sunday magazine.
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Salva Dut, a Sudanese refugee who came to the United States in 1996, has formed a nonprofit organization, Water for Sudan, Inc., to raise money to drill new wells and provide fresh water to villages throughout Southern Sudan. Currently, Sudanese villagers walk miles daily to collect water, which is often contaminated with parasites that cause pain, sickness, and death.
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"It was a flock of children and a few adults. You sort of just joined the stream of people, and the stream became a river, and the river became rivers of people," said Aduei Riak, describing her flight from Sudan in 1987. Read the Associated Press story about Aduei, now a student at Brandeis University in Massachusetts.
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Many people have asked, "Whatever happened to the 'Lost Girls' of Sudan?" As the stories and videos from Mapendo International's Web site reveal, fewer than 100 female refugees from Sudan were admitted to the United States with the approximately 4,000 young men. Many Sudanese girls were placed with foster families in the Kakuma refugee camps, and those families usually forced the girls into arranged marriages at age 15 in exchange for a dowry. Read about some of the lucky ones who made it to America. Go to www.mapendo.org and click on Refugee Information/Sudanese Women at Risk.
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BOOKS
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Home of the Brave is Katherine Applegate's young adult novel about Kek, a Sudanese refugee who comes to America and struggles to make a new home. Written as a free verse poem, it reflects the longing of a Lost Boy. Published by Felwell and Friends, an imprint of Holtzbrinck Publishers, in September 2007. |
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They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky: The True Story of Three Lost Boys from Sudan, by Alephonsion Deng, Benson Deng, Benjamin Ajak, and Judy A. Bernstein. Read a book review by Holly Holland in the Louisville Courier-Journal. |
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What Is the What, written by Dave Eggers, is the novelized autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng, from his pre-war life in southern Sudan to his resettlement in the United States. All proceeds from What Is the What go to aiding the Sudanese in America and Sudan. Valentino Deng started a foundation in 2006 to raise money to improve educational opportunities for refugees in southern Sudan and the United States. See the Speakers Bureau for more information about Sudanese who are available to share their stories with audiences around the United States. Read an article in the Louisville Eccentric Observer (LEO)about What is the What and local reactions. |
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Echoes of the Lost Boys of Sudan (Echoes Joint Venture, 2004), a graphic novel series by Myk Friedman, tells the story of several Lost Boys who have settled in Dallas, Texas, including Matthew Mabek. Published in Dallas by James Disco. |
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Lost Boy no More: A True Story of Survival and Salvation, by Abraham Nhial and DiAnn Mills. |
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The Lost Boys of Sudan: An American Story of the Refugee Experience, by Mark Bixler. Read a book review by Holly Holland in the Louisville Courier-Journal. |
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I Will Go the Distance: The Story of a Lost Sudanese Boy of the 'Sixties, by Jacob J. Akol (Kenya, Paulines Publications Africa, 2005). |
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The Journey of the Lost Boys: A Story of Courage, Faith and the Sheer Determination to Survive by a Group of Young Boys Called "The Lost Boys of Sudan," by Joan Hecht. |
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Brothers in Hope: The Story of the Lost Boys of Sudan (Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Books; Lee & Low Books, Inc., 2005), by Mary Williams. |
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RELATED WEB SITES |
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The African Refugee Artists Club is an organization of young artists, founded by Atem Aleu, one of the Lost Boys of Sudan who attends Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. According to a recent story in Seven Days, Aleu has been organizing art exhibitions around the country. A self-taught artist who used United Nations' art books to learn his craft, Aleu "showed so much talent that he was eventually made an instructor of about 75 other young Sudanese" in the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya.
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The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota has an exhibition of art from the Lost Boys of Sudan.
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The Gurtong Peace Project is an independent, not for profit, community-based project that seeks to provide information about South Sudan and a discussion forum for Sudanese refugees living in other countries. According to Web site, the phrase "gurtong" means "to blunt the spear" and refers to a traditional ceremony in which two parties resolve a conflict. It symbolizes forgiveness and reconciliation. |
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FILMS ABOUT THE LOST BOYS |
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The New Sudan, a short documentary film produced by Nadus Films for the African Leadership and Reconciliation Ministry (ALARM), is available on DVD for limited distribution. The film was developed by Louisville photographer Coury Deeb and filmmaker Lindsy Wallace. For more information, contact Deeb by email at coury@nadusfilms.com or by telephone at 502-558-1117. |
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For information about Lost Boys of Sudan, a documentary film by Megan Mylan and Jon Shenk, go towww.lostboysfilm.com. |
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FRIENDS OF THE LOST BOYS |
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Kentucky Refugee Ministries, Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to providing resettlement services to refugees through church- and agency-based sponsorship. |
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Catholic Charities of Louisville, Inc., a member of Catholic Charities USA, provides service for people in need, including the world's refugees. |
