NKU Graduate Thanks Sponsors for Investing in his Education

By Deng Bul Kuer Twenty years ago when I first started going to school in Ethiopia, I never thought it would be necessary for me to graduate from college. Not because of my inability to perform well in school, but because of the difficulties and challenges we had faced as children who depend on each other in a foreign land. Ethiopia, according to southern leaders who came up with the idea of sending a number of kids away from Sudan, was a place where we could acquire education after we escaped the great horror of war during the 1980s in Sudan. But it was never an easy task for us to achieve such a desired goal for many reasons. First, it was hard for a cluster of children at about the same age to concentrate on education in the absence of parental care and control. As many of you may know the success of children in school in this country (USA) largely depends on supports from parents, such as waking them up in the morning to drive them to school and pressure them to read and complete their school work in a specified period of time. Most of us, especially those who lived in foreign countries without parents, never had an opportunity to get advice from their parents that would have enhanced our ability to focus and perform well in school. Nor did we get pats on the back by our parents and encouragement that they were really proud of our achievements in school. Second, most of the places (refugee camps) where these education programs were provided were located in unstable environments where fear was a driving force for those who lacked an ability to devote most of their time to education. Ethiopia, the first stop on our long journey, was not a better or safer place than the country we left to avoid human tragedy. The only difference was that the fighting was directed against the government and its people, at least for the time being before the rebels took control of the country in 1991 and drove out foreigners by force. That fighting became a distraction not just to us, but also for United Nations agencies who established and funded schools we used to go to at the refugee camps in Ethiopia. The same thing was happening to us at a refugee camp in Kenya, which caused us to return to Sudan either to find where the rest of the family was or wander around along the borders of Kenya, Uganda, and Ethiopia with Sudan when it appeared that the enemy had blocked all routes to the planned destination. Finally, one of the major problems regarding education in the refugee camp was the inadequacy of resources. UN agencies weren’t able to provide us with everything we would need for school. For instance, classes were held under the tree for the first few months or so in the camp. Not just because the UN wasn’t able to provide buildings for classes to be held in, but because of our own mobility at the time. Even if we were lucky enough to have classes under the tree, there would be nothing to write with because there were no exercise books and pencils or textbooks. I remember during my first year in school (first grade) when I had to write alphabetical letters in the dirt and tried my best to record them in my mind so that I could remember them the next day of the class. Sometimes we had to break pencils into pieces and cut exercise books in half so that everyone could have one when they are available. The only solution to some of the problems we had either in Sudan or in countries we lived in as refugees was to get away from the place that posed a greater threat to our lives. And every time we moved to the new camp, the desire to continue with school was never suspended despite the long period of waiting for UN agencies to respond to the problems. Despite all these hardships, most of us were able to acknowledge that the days where assistance would come may never come, which became part of the encouragement to deal with challenges and work even harder to survive or get to where some of us are today. It is not an easy thing to deal with at a younger age, but if you know that there is no person other than yourself to provide what you need, you just keep going and hope for the better. That hope transcended into something bigger when the United States granted some people a resettlement in the United States where we now have the opportunity to go to school. It was not something that came cheap either as some of us had expected, but one was able to accomplish something because of extraordinary support and encouragement from sponsors, mentors, and friends across the state of Kentucky, and particularly in the city of Louisville. And I want to thank everyone for his/her dedication for providing the kind of help we did need to get to the point where we are today. It would have been nearly impossible for us to achieve this goal if it wasn’t for your voluntary works and commitment to making a difference in other people lives..And I hope such an unwavering conviction in you for serving others without condition will continue with the journey many of us have chosen to take here in America.

 

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