Art by the Lost Boys of Sudan What Is the What Eggers Artwirj
A 'Lost Male child' Battles AK-47s With Education
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transcript
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Paying It Forrad
Nicholas Kristof travels to South Sudan to revisit Valentino Deng, a "Lost Boy" of Sudan who runs a remarkable school amid ceremonious war.
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MARIAL BAI, Due south Sudan — If in that location'southward a world heart of despair, it may exist S Sudan, enveloped in an increasingly brutal war in which children are raped and so burned alive. Just against that grim properties, one local man has undertaken a journey that is an affirmation of promise, inspiration and the transformative power of education.
Valentino Deng, 37, a sometime refugee from this town, has returned from America to build a remarkable high school here — with the royalties from "What Is the What," the best-selling book most him by Dave Eggers.
Valentino, an one-time friend of mine, says his life was transformed by education and the generosity that people showed him, showtime in refugee camps so in America. And so now he is paying it forward, and he argues that teaching is the most potent force to overcome his country'due south poverty, tribalism and AK-47s.
"Non everyone had these privileges as I did, so I feel I must non let anyone downward," he says. "There is no better way of sharing the American blessings."
At night, hyenas cackle beyond his new school'due south dormitories, and there'south no Internet or running h2o. Only this boarding schoolhouse has emerged equally one of the best schools in S Sudan, with well-nigh one,000 students from around the nation vying each yr for 150 places in the ninth-grade class.
Valentino was a child here in Marial Bai, but a Sudanese militia attacked the expanse when he was vii years old. He fled and became ane of the legendary Sudanese "Lost Boys" who drifted unaccompanied through countless perils — from land mines to crocodiles — to refugee camps first in Ethiopia and then in Kenya. Valentino saw friends devoured past lions and massacred past soldiers.
But Valentino was blessed every bit well as cursed. In the normal course of events, he might have ended up herding cattle. Instead, he learned to read and write at a refugee camp school, past scratching letters in the dust with his finger. And so he practical for refugee status in America, and he says he made a pact with God: If y'all let me go to America, I volition use those connections to aid my country.
Ultimately, the United States accepted him and he settled in Atlanta in 2001. Increasingly, he decided that what his homeland virtually lacked was education.
"I was hiding in this bush-league from someone on horseback shooting, and I had aught to fight back," he remembers. "So when I went dorsum I was looking for a solution. And I recollect the solution is education."
After "What Is the What" came out in 2006, I moderated a console where Valentino pledged to utilise the book's royalties to build a boarding schoolhouse in his hometown. Then I visited Marial Bai a few years ago and wrote a column; generous Times readers responded with hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations to complete the school and allow it to operate without charging tuition.
Prototype
Even so, the challenges are enormous. Valentino believes that educating girls is crucial to moving away from a culture of warfare, so he was determined to enroll l percent girls in the school. At that, he has failed. Merely about one-third of the student body is female, even though he accepts near every daughter who applies.
The trouble is that in Due south Sudan, girls' instruction just isn't a priority. In 2010, only 400 girls enrolled in 12th form in the unabridged country. Parents oft believe that girls should be marrying, not studying.
Susana Ajak Wol Athian, a 10th grader in Valentino's school who dreams of becoming a doctor, said her parents — who are illiterate — have decided to sell her to be the helpmate of an uneducated and much older human being, for 25 cows. She did not get home on her final holiday for fearfulness that her parents would forcibly paw her over to the homo.
"I don't know him," she says. "I don't want to marry him."
Valentino deals with other headaches as well: powerful officials who want their children admitted (he tells them that everything depends on a child'southward score in admission exams); teachers who casualty on schoolgirls (he fires them); a collapsing economic system that creates few jobs (he teaches students to start their own businesses); and surging prices (students cut costs past growing much of their own food, while keeping an middle out in the garden for spitting cobras and blackness mambas).
Valentino was also appointed last year to be minister of education for Northern Bahr el Ghazal, the state in which his school is located, responsible for 875 public schools in the region. He inherited a plush function, but no plumbing or Internet.
And of course he misses America and its charms. Peculiarly chicken chimichangas.
Yet if Southward Sudan'southward civil war is a reminder of the peril of illiteracy and tribalism, Valentino's school is a tribute to the ability of education and inspiration. Many S Sudanese, after moving to the United States or other countries, concluded up returning to their homeland to requite dorsum. Their initiatives include the One Tree School Project, Building Minds in South Sudan, Water for Due south Sudan, Bor College High Schoolhouse, the Sudan Evolution Foundation and Marol Academy.
I of the most mutual questions on Facebook and in lectures is how I avoid being overwhelmed and discouraged by the horrors I written report on. Sure, the violence tin be heartbreaking — a calendar week ago, I reported on South Sudan soldiers raping, castrating and killing children — but for every fell warlord, there's a great soul like Valentino struggling to build as others destroy. (For those who desire to help Valentino, visit his website, VadFoundation.org.)
Considering of this school, I see rays of promise here. The head girl, Victoria Ahok Kuach, says she aims to be the first albino fellow member of Parliament in Due south Sudan. Dennis Longoben Tulyaba, whose family was displaced by warfare, hopes to be a lawyer. Mary Awet Kuom, whose father was killed in state of war, has turned downwards four offers of union and seeks to exist a doctor.
"Boys and girls are equal," Mary declared firmly — and and so she amended that to brand clear that girls are a little more than equal. "I tin can practise better than whatsoever boy," she scoffed.
In these kids, I run into the aforementioned vision as in Valentino that schooling is the best antidote to cruelty, poverty and war.
So congratulations, readers, on what you've achieved here. It's true that South Sudan is torn apart by atrocities, corruption and famine, but side by side with the worst of humanity, you find the best. In this school, you see refracted a land of hope.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/12/opinion/sunday/nicholas-kristof-a-lost-boy-battles-ak-47s-with-education.html
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