Why this country, why these children, and why education is the key.
South Sudan declared independence from Sudan in 2011, the world's newest country. Population is around 12 million; the majority are Christian. Most villages don't have electricity, running water, or paved roads.
Civil war and ethnic violence have driven powerful groups to fight for control of the country and its resources, from oil to grazing land. Nearly 4 million people have been forced to flee their homes. It's the largest refugee crisis on the continent and a full humanitarian emergency.
Exiled South Sudanese families have sought peace in refugee camps inside and outside the country's borders. Conditions are crowded, resources are short, and there's almost no formal education available for the children who land there.
The kids in these camps — many of whom have lost their parents — have little to no access to school. Donations are what put them in a classroom. We can't end a war. We can keep one kid in school for another year.
Gabriel didn't read about this in a book. He was two years old when soldiers reached his village. The Red Cross carried him out. He grew up an orphan in a UNHCR camp in northern Kenya. The numbers below are why he came back.
Over 20,000 boys and girls separated from their families in Sudan's civil war. Most were under 10.
Many walked across South Sudan into Ethiopia and on to Kakuma in northern Kenya, over a thousand miles, mostly at night.
Roughly half of the children died on the walk: dehydration, starvation, attacks, or river crossings.
About 3,800 — including Gabriel — were resettled to the United States starting in 2001.
Sources: UNHCR; International Rescue Committee; Lost Boys of Sudan oral histories. Numbers are widely-reported approximations of the 1987–2001 displacement.
Many South Sudanese families flee south to Uganda, where the UNHCR runs some of the largest refugee settlements in the world. Conditions are crowded; schools are oversubscribed; resources are stretched thin.
That's why four of our six partner schools are in Uganda, serving the displaced South Sudanese families who landed there and the local Ugandan communities that took them in.
We can't end a war. We can keep one kid in school for one more year. Stack enough of those years together and a country changes.
