THE LOST BOYS OF SUDAN

Wadeng Wings of Hope exists because of the vision of one person, Jacob Deng, a young man who, as one of the Lost Boys of Sudan, survived unimaginable hardships as a child and adolescent, and came to Nova Scotia as a refugee in 2003.



Jacob’s dream of building schools in Southern Sudan arose from the deprivation and harrowing escape he experienced, and many in Nova Scotia and other parts of Canada have been inspired by his compelling story to join in his vision.

Jacob, a member of the Dinka tribe, was born in Duk Padiet, a village near the Nile in Southern Sudan. When insurgents supported by the government that came to power in a coup in 1989 ravaged his village, burning everything in sight and slaughtering people, including most of Jacob’s family, Jacob as a seven-year-old child fled on foot with thousands of other boys to Ethiopia, barely surviving the four-month trek.

With little to eat and dangers from soldiers and wild animals, many of the boys did not make it. In a camp of 20,000 boys in Ethiopia, life did not improve much, as food proved to be scarce if available at all, and again many of the boys did not survive.

Their best hope lay in their makeshift outdoor school, where they received a rudimentary education. By 1991, when Ethiopia forced them to leave, they again were on the run, with the support of soldiers from the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. They drank water from tanks contaminated by diesel fuel, making them ill.

After some time on the Sudanese border, they started another trek, barefoot in the scorching heat, to a refugee camp in Kakuma, Kenya.

The food rations given once a week would last no more than three days, and during these “black days” with no food or water, concentrating on school lessons proved impossible. An average of twenty boys died each day. Jacob knew he needed an education, but this was not the way to get it.

Taking a great risk, he left the camp and returned to Sudan, traded his bag of clothes for tobacco, and then traded the tobacco for goats. He returned to Kenya with five goats, and the sale of the goats enabled him to enter a boarding school.

Help from UNICEF, other non-governmental organizations, and UN officials kept him in school. Always enterprising, with knowledge of a number of languages, he started serving as a translator for medical personnel at the age of eleven.

Eventually he met a Canadian diplomat, who helped to facilitate his refugee application to Canada. Unlike many Sudanese refugees in Canada, who quickly moved west to find work, Jacob has kept his dream of an education alive, first studying at CompuCollege, where he received the Student of the Year award.

After completing two years at Acadia University, he enrolled at Saint Mary’s University, where he studies commerce. He lives in Halifax with his wife Jenty, who is studying nursing at Dalhousie University, and their two boys.

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The registered charity Wadeng Wings of Hope exists in order to make a difference in the lives of people in Southern Sudan, first of all to the people in and around the village of Duk Padiet in the state of Jonglei, and then to people in the surrounding county.

The reason for our involvement with this region is personal, since the founder of Wadeng Wings of Hope, Jacob Deng, was born there, and left at the age of seven as one of the Lost Boys of Sudan.

We need your support. Please browse this website to learn more about us and our projects, and how you can help us.

Address:
Wadeng Wings of Hope
P. O. Box 31125
Halifax NS B3K 5Y1
Canada

E-mail: wadengwoh@hotmail.com

Phone: (902) 404-3380

For more information, and to order the book, visit A Hare in the Elephant’s Trunk. The publisher is donating 40% of the proceeds to Wadneg, from orders through fitzhenry.ca (the linked site).
http://www.fitzhenry.ca/detail.aspx?ID=10378

The Situation in Southern Sudan

We all know about Sudan because of the frequency of the Darfur province in the news, unfortunately almost daily, as matters there do not improve.

Over two decades of civil war have resulted in the deaths of two million people throughout this largest of all African countries, and the displacement of five million.

The signing of a peace accord in January of 2005 has helped, but only partially in Darfur, where some rebel factions have not signed on, and there is little evidence that the government-supported Janjaweed militias are complying. Under these circumstances the UN mission in Sudan has had great difficulty making a difference, and the government’s reluctance to allow a peacekeeping mission has been one of the problems.

Now that a much larger UN mission has augmented the African Union force, the prospects for peace appear to be somewhat more encouraging.

Matters have been less desperate in Southern Sudan, where a de facto government has been set up with jurisdiction over some aspects of life, including education.

The Sudan election of 2010, which will be a test of national unity, and the referendum on independence for the South set for 2011, will not necessarily take place without conflict.

The UN mission in the capital of Southern Sudan, Juba, has been able to begin the process of finding a transition to civilian life through its DDR (disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration) program, and there is hope that Southern Sudan can return to some level of normalcy.

Much needs to be done before that can happen. A UN survey indicates that for the wellbeing of women and children, Southern Sudan ranks as the worst in the world. This manifests itself in education, where only 20% of children go to school, and a mere 2% complete their primary education.

For girls this is even worse: girls are nine times more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth than to finish primary school. The low rate of literacy is matched by the abysmal record for health, nutrition, availability of water, and sanitation.

Steps are now being taken to correct this, primarily by UNICEF in cooperation with the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MOEST) of Southern Sudan. On 1 April 2006 UNICEF and MOEST launched the Go to School Initiative, which they hope will put an additional 1.6 million children in school, provide books, teaching materials, teachers, and schools.

UNICEF has initiated a plan to build 1,500 new classrooms, or 200-250 schools. Currently untrained volunteers serve as teachers, typically with a chalkboard propped up against a tree in an open-air setting.

These are very ambitious plans, but they will take time. Serious efforts can be seen in cities and larger towns such as Juba, Rumbek, and Wāw, but only a limited amount (mainly from other NGOs) of evidence for this initiative can be found in more remote areas, such as the state of Jonglei, in the southeast between the Nile and the mountains of Ethiopia, the state in which Duk Padiet is found. Organizations such as Wadeng Wings of Hope must help to make this happen.