A 'Lost Boy of Sudan’ Elijah Manyok Jok who became a humanitarian in South Sudan: WFP school meals vital

“Sometimes it was hard to live with just the food ration each of us received from WFP. It became easier with time when we joined efforts and shared the rations as a family. Many of children arriving at the camp presented signs of malnutrition. School meals however, proved a vital source of sustenance.

“[They] saved us from malnutrition and changed our lives," says Elijah. 

"When there were ration cuts, the school was completely empty. Kids cannot stay at school until 6pm without eating and go back home with an empty stomach.” 

Read more in article at World Food Programme (WFP) wfp.org
By Gioacchino Gargano
Dated 13 December 2021 - here is a copy in full:

World at his feet: The ‘lost boy’ who became a humanitarian in South Sudan

Recruited by militants in the nineties, Elijah Manyok Jok escaped to Kenya where he received World Food Programme school meals, joining the organization as an adult - and then setting up his own NGO

Sudanese children playing football in Zam Zam camp in 2016 – five years after South Sudan gained independence. Photo: WFP/Gabriela Vivacqua 

“My first memories of the World Food Programme as a child are the cars driving through the streets of Kakuma refugee camp,” says Elijah Manyok Jok – vehicles emblazoned with the blue letters, WFP. “I remember me and my friends running around those cars, asking for bottles of water. Back then we didn't see those bottles very often so they were very precious to us. Those cars gave us hope that something good was coming our way and that, one day, we too would be driving one of those cars. That was the only hope a refugee child could have at that time.”

The 34-year-old from Bor, a city on the eastern banks of the White Nile river in South Sudan, is the founder and chief executive of an NGO called the Smile Again Africa Development Organization and leading a humanitarian figure in his own right. 

In the early 1990s, the second Sudanese civil war stormed the southern regions of the country, bringing terror and massacres. 

Elijah left Bor, seeking refuge in the bushes of Eastern Equatorial state – starting a journey that landed him in the very sort of cars he once chased, as a WFP field monitor.

“I spent three years within the war zones and bushes of southern Sudan, wandering before joining the rest of the unaccompanied minors who later became known as the 'lost boys' of Sudan,” he says.

Elijah and other 20,000 children, from the rural region of what was then southern Sudan were displaced or orphaned during the war. The lost boys embarked on perilous journeys to the nearest refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya where thousands had been sheltered for a number of years.

Struggling to survive, they became easy targets for the armed groups — many, including Elijah, were recruited as child soldiers. In 1994, at the age of 7, Elijah managed to escape and cross the border to Kenya. After days of walking, he arrived at Kakuma refugee camp.

An undated photo of Elijah (middle) with his friends in Kakuma. 

Photo: Supplied

Growing up in Kakuma

“At first, they divided us into groups, I shared a shelter with other boys I never met before,” he says. “Then, with time, I found relatives and family friends and moved in with them”.

Then there was the issue of meals. 

“Sometimes it was hard to live with just the food ration each of us received from WFP. It became easier with time when we joined efforts and shared the rations as a family. Many of children arriving at the camp presented signs of malnutrition. School meals however, proved a vital source of sustenance."

“[They] saved us from malnutrition and changed our lives," says Elijah. "When there were ration cuts, the school was completely empty. Kids cannot stay at school until 6pm without eating and go back home with an empty stomach.”

In early 2000, the project to resettle the lost boys of Sudan brought new hope in the camp. Some 3,000 children made it to the US. “I was excited about the idea of going to the US. I was ready to start a new life and continue my studies,” says Elijah. But then came 9/11. “Everything changed, the programme was completely shut down, as well as my hope. Kakuma remained my home for the following seven years.”

The civil war finally ended in 2005 with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Elijah requested to be resettled in South Sudan.

In 2007, Elijah flew back home on a UNHCR flight. He settled in Bor, where he was finally reunited with his parents.

He enrolled in at online university to pursue a degree in business administration. Upon graduating in 2010, he received a call from WFP offering him a position as field monitor.

“There was a strong calling in me to step up and help my people help themselves,” he says. “I was a product of humanitarian efforts myself after 13 years of being a refugee, totally relying on humanitarian assistance for my food, water, shelter, protection, and education. all basics of life. I was therefore indebted to humanity and saw this as an opportunity to give back.”

And there he was, from the other side of the bulletproof window of a WFP car, looking at kids running along as his country was screaming out loud for independence.

Elijah celebrating the independence of South Sudan in 2011. 

Photo: Supplied

 “I was still working with WFP when South Sudan got its independence [in 2011]. I have wonderful memories. I was at the border with Sudan when we received the news, it was a mix of joy, shock, and disbelief. We celebrated all night, and I was the star of the party, being the only one carrying a South Sudanese flag”.

Airdrops to fight famine

After three years at WFP, Elijah broadened his experience by working with international NGOs such as Save the Children and Catholic Relief. “It was a great experience. It helped me understand how a big NGO is managed,” he says.

He then supported a group of friends founding Smile Again Africa. Since 2014, the year of a disastrous food crisis in South Sudan, he has been working full time with Smile Again Africa, which has been partnering with WFP to deliver food assistance and implement feeding programmes.

“I remember the struggles to reach the ones in need in 2014. There was no access, no roads, [a] high risk of being ambushed. That is when WFP started dropping food from the sky. I’ve been very vocal about the need for airdrops.”

Air drops are a last resort for WFP as they cost seven times more than delivering by road.

Elijah with the WFP Director of South Sudan Matthew Hollingworth, left. Photo: Supplied

With time, Elijah transformed Smile Again into a solid, national NGO focusing on food security, livelihoods, gender, education, and nutrition.

“When I joined as the new CEO of SAADO, the organization had only one office, seven staff and one computer and the first project was funded by WFP for US$19,000. Now we have 9 offices, around 600 staff members and a yearly budget of between US$9 million and 11 million.” 

Elijah doesn’t miss any opportunity to join forums and events WFP organizes for its NGO partners. 

“These consultations have really helped shaped SAADO leadership. It helped us create a bigger network and get in contact with international actors.

“When I met [WFP chief executive] David Beasley in Rome, I told him that in my life I have been dealing with WFP in almost all possible ways: I’ve been a beneficiary, I have been a staff member and now I am a partner. I am just missing becoming a donor…. we will see about that!”

Learn more about WFP's work in South Sudan

This article complements the Annual Partnership Consultation 2021, an event that WFP organizes annually to discuss strategic priorities and coordinated activities with its 800+ international and local NGOs partners

View original and photos: https://www.wfp.org/stories/world-his-feet-lost-boy-who-became-humantarian-south-sudan

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There are no better experts on refugees than refugees

Report from The Guardian - guardian.org
By Saeed Kamali Dehghan
Dated Monday, 9 October 2023; 06.00 BST - here is a full copy:

‘There are no better experts on refugees than refugees’: Nhial Deng on why politicians need to listen

At 11, the South Sudanese refugee was forced to flee his Ethiopian village and spent several years in Kakuma camp in Kenya. His work helping others there won UN recognition and a prestigious award – now he’s planning to fund a library

Nhial Deng’s incredible journey culminated last month in receiving a prestigious UN prize recognising 14 years of helping other refugees. Photograph: Courtesy of Chegg.org

The militiamen came early in the morning when the children were sleeping. The serenity of Itang, an Ethiopian village on the Baro River skirting a national park close to the South Sudanese border, was about to be broken.

Eleven-year-old Nhial Deng heard gunshots and screaming as his father woke him up, whispering to him that there was only time to pack a shirt, a pen and a bottle of water.

“He brought me outside the house and pointed to a group of mostly women and children and a few men who were gathering under a small tree and told me that I had to go with them to a refugee camp,” says Deng, now 24, recalling the events of April 2010.

“I couldn’t move. I saw houses burning, I saw someone on the ground bleeding, people were running in all directions,” he says. “Someone came and pulled me to the group – I never even had a chance to say goodbye to my dad.”

That day was the start of an incredible journey for Deng, which culminated in him receiving a prestigious prize from the United Nations last month that recognised his work over the past 14 years in helping other refugees.

Deng was born in Ethiopia, where his father settled having fled South Sudan years before, but “it never came to my mind that one day [the conflict] would be something that would affect me directly”, Deng remembers.

It took the group two days to get to another village south of their own, where people divided into two groups. Deng’s group headed to the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya. After a two-week journey on foot and on the back of trucks, he eventually made it to the camp in north-west Kenya, which today is home to more than 200,000 refugees.

Deng says he was scared and shivering throughout the journey but had hope because “my dad told me while he was holding me that I would be able to go to school – from a very young age my dad told me that education was a tool that I could use to transform my life.”

A pastor took Deng in as part of a fostered family programme and within a few months, he was registered at school.

“I felt at home when I started going to school,” he says. “The school was more than a place of learning for me, it was a place where I was able to find solace, where I was able to find hope, where I was able to find healing.”

Refugees from South Sudan register at Kakuma camp in Kenya. Photograph: Thomas Mukoya/Reuters

Kakuma refugee camp was set up in the early 1990s when thousands of Sudanese children, known as the “lost boys of Sudan”, flocked to safety after a civil war.

The sense of community that I experienced in the refugee camp is something that I have not seen anywhere else

“Life in the camp was just incredible,” Deng says. “The sense of community that I experienced in the refugee camp is something I have not seen anywhere else. You’ll see people who have their own challenges who would struggle day in, day out, but would hold on to each other.”

The Red Cross family-tracking programme managed to locate Deng’s family after four years – a two-minute phone call reunited him with his parents in 2014. Initial attempts to find his father failed because he had relocated to South Sudan, but the Red Cross found the family after they returned to Ethiopia.

It was only last year that Deng was able to meet with his mother and six siblings, who now live in Kenya. He has yet to see his father, who is still in Ethiopia, in person.

In 2017, Deng set up the Refugee Youth Peace Ambassadors, a group that started as a Wednesday club at his school and then expanded to other schools providing mentorship and creating workshops.

In 2018, Deng – who identifies as a South Sudanese refugee – graduated from the school, and later took a one-year online course with Regis University in the US, before being admitted on a full scholarship to Huron University in Ontario, Canada, where he moved in 2021 to study global studies and communications.

Deng went back to Kakuma refugee camp in 2021 to set up a new initiative called SheLeads Kakuma, aimed at empowering women and girls through a six-month leadership, advocacy and mentorship programme.

Nhial Deng speaks at the UN’s Transforming Education summit. Photograph: Jaclyn Licht/UN Photo

The UN has recognised Deng’s work helping other refugees. He was invited to speak on the sidelines of the UN general assembly in New York last month, where he was named the winner of a global student prize worth $100,000 (£82,500). The judges of the Chegg.org Global Student Prize chose him from almost 4,000 students in 122 countries.

“Nhial has overcome unimaginable adversity to keep fighting for a better future, not just for himself, but for thousands like him. In times of crisis, we need innovation and resilience, and Nhial’s commitment to tackling the global refugee crisis is truly inspirational,” said Heather Hatlo Porter, the chief communications officer of Chegg.

Deng has promised to donate half of his prize money to build a library at Kakuma refugee camp.

The UN refugee agency said in June that an estimated 108 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide by the end of last year – the number of refugees rose by a record 35% to reach 34.6 million. Politicians and media, Deng says, “need to talk more with refugees than about refugees”.

“I think no one can tell your story better than yourself. There are no better experts about the refugee issue than refugees and that’s why we need to listen to refugees.”

Deng is critical of how some developed countries disregard “the underlying principle of responsibility sharing” in the UN refugee convention.

Deng now helps young people in refugee camps to improve their lives through education and sport. He is particularly passionate about gender equality and misinformation. Photograph: Courtesy of Chegg.org

“More refugees are staying in countries neighbouring them. Over 70% of refugees actually stay in the developing world, in the global south,” he says, adding that Kenya hosts more than 600,000 refugees and Uganda more than a million.

“They [developed countries] don’t see the bigger picture, but also politicians turn refugees into a political football. They use that for their own gain. Numbers are often manufactured or they are exaggerated in some way. The reality is that a big number of refugees live in the developing world and [host] countries are not getting the credit at all.

“It’s incredible that from the first time in 1991 when the first group of refugees arrived in Kenya, Kenya has not closed its borders to refugees. It’s been open throughout.”

Asked about the potential of refugees, he says: “I think everyone has something to do. Everyone can contribute in some small way.”

View original: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/oct/09/there-are-no-better-experts-on-refugees-than-refugees-nhial-deng-on-why-politicians-need-to-listen

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