www.sudaneseinkentucky.org

Northern Kentucky University Graduate Thanks Church  Sponsors and Sudanese Refugee Scholarship Fund Donors for Investing in his Education

By Deng Bul Kuer

Twenty years ago when I first start 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 unnecessary 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 that 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 drove them to school and pressure them to read and complete their school’s works in a specified period of time. Most of us, especially those who lived in foreign countries without parents never had an opportunity to get an advice from their parents that would have enhance our ability to focus and perform well in school, or get pat in the back by our parents and say that they are really proud of our achievements in school.

Second, most of the places (refugee camps) where these education programs where provided were located in an unstable environments where fear was a driving force for those who lacked an ability to devote most of their time to education. Ethiopia itself was not a better  or safe place than the country we left to avoid  human tragedy, except 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 UN agencies who established and funded schools we use to go to at the refugee camps in Ethiopia. The same thing was happening to us at a refugee camp in Kenya which resulted in the abandonment of the camp by the rest of us who went back to Sudan either to find where the rest of the family was or wandering around between 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 as well as books. 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 becomes part of the encouragement for others at some point 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 already knew that there is no person other than yourself that would provide everything to keep doing what you expect to accomplish, you just keep going and hope for the better. That hope transcended into something bigger when the US Government 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.

University of Kentucky Graduate Overcomes Hardship, Loss in Quest for Education

Mabior (John) Thuch Ghack earned a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from the University of Kentucky in May, 2008. His inspiring journey from war refugee to college graduate included many struggles. Read his story in The Kentucky Kernel.

 

 

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Didinga and Dinka Musicians Celebrate Tribal Traditions at Scholarship Event

Sudanese musicians and dancers from Kentucky, New York, Michigan, and South Dakota traveled to Louisville on Dec. 2, 2007 to perform at a fundraising event to benefit the Sudanese Refugee Education Fund. Members of the Didinga Hills Cultural Rhythms Dancers entertained a standing-room-only crowd at O'Shea's Traditional Irish Pub. They were followed by a Louisville-based Sudanese Dinka group who demonstrated their musical skills on traditional carved wooden, parchment, and stringed instruments called the Rababa, a spiked fiddle considered part of the lute family. 

Right: Patrick Lokonyen, a student at the University of Louisville, claps to the rhythm of the nyakorot. Left: Maurice Moro and Christine Lokiru, students at Jefferson Community College, perform a segment of the nyakorot called padan, which refers to the slapping body movement of women against men. See additional photos on the Current Events page.

For more information about the dance traditions of the Didinga, see University of Syracuse folklorist Felicia McMahon's descriptions. McMahon is the author of the book, Not Just Child's Play (The University Press of Mississippi, 2007), an anthropological account of Didinga culture and traditional music.

Left: James Malou, far right, a student at the University of Louisville and a board member of the Sudanese Refugee Education Fund, introduces the Dinka Rababa musicians, including Lual "Jacob" Aker Deng, a student at Spencerian College, Michael Pac, Emmanuel Solomon, and Solomon John, a student at Jefferson Community College.  

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Didinga Hills Cultural Rhythms Dancers Perform in New York

More than a dozen members of the Didinga Hills Cultural Rhythms Dance Ensemble, which includes Sudanese refugees now living in Louisville and Syracuse, performed at the Community Folk Art Center at Syracuse University on March 31, 2007. The dancers dressed in traditional clothing favored by the Didinga people and performed songs that recalled their distant childhoods. The Didinga, one of the smallest ethnic groups in South Sudan, inhabit a highland region near the country's borders with Uganda and Kenya and predominantly farm and raise livestock.

For more information about the Didinga Hills Cultural Rhythms Dance Ensemble, contact James Kiki or Benjamin Virgilio at 315-396-0733 or Dr. Darius Oliha Makuja at 315-299-5390.

Sudanese Scholars Become U.S. Citizens

By Heidi Thiel

A crowded room in the federal courthouse in Louisville sparked with nervous excitement on Nov. 17, 2006. This was a wedding day of sorts as people from various countries were about to marry a new country, the United States of America. Two young men from Sudan were among the crowd: Gabriel Akec Kuai and James Maluak Malou.

Both Kuai and Malou were dressed in suits and quietly made their way to the second floor courtroom. The honorable Judge Magistrate Dave Whalen presided over the ceremony. “This is a happy time, a day of joy and new beginnings,” he said. 

Officer Steve Hill stood up to sing the national anthem with his powerful tenor voice. The entire courtroom rose and all eyes were on the flag in the corner. The naturalization proceedings were firmly underway. Each new citizen rose to state his or her name and country of origin. With hands in the air, the new citizens took the Oath of Allegiance:

"I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen;  that I will support and defend the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic;  that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same;  that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law;  that I will perform noncombatant service in the armed forces of the United States when required by the law;  that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law;  and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion:  So help me God."

Immediately following the ceremony, the Certificates of Naturalization were presented to the new citizens of the United States of America. 

Gabriel Kuai is a senior at Murray State University and a scholarship winner from the Sudanese Refugee Education Fund. James Malou is a junior at the University of Louisville and a member of the advisory board of the Sudanese Refugee Education Fund.

We welcome these young men of considerable accomplishment to their new home: the United States of America, the land of the free and home of the brave.