Valentino Achak Deng has toured the United States and Europe sharing his story, talking about his collaboration with Dave Eggers on What Is the What, and educating audiences about Southern Sudan. For speaking engagements, Valentino is represented by The Lavin Agency. To visit his speaker page, click here.
We have also established a speakers bureau to connect Sudanese speakers with the interested public. There are many Sudanese public speakers across the country who visit groups to share their experiences and teach local communities about Sudan. Many of these speakers faced the same struggles as Valentino, but they all have their own stories to tell. Think globally, act locally: please consider inviting a Sudanese-American speaker to your school, church, civic group, or house party.
Valentino Achak Deng
Hometown: Marial Bai, southern Sudan
Valentino Achak Deng was born in southern Sudan, in the village of Marial Bai. He fled Sudan in the late 1980’s during civil war, when his village was destroyed by murahaleen—the same type of militia that currently terrorize Darfur. Deng spent nine years in Ethiopian and Kenyan refugee camps, where he worked for the UNHCR as a social advocate and reproductive health educator. In 2001 he resettled to Atlanta. Deng has toured the country speaking about his life in Sudan, his experience as a refugee, and his collaboration with author Dave Eggers on What Is the What, the novelized version of Deng’s life story. As a leader in the Sudanese diaspora, Deng advocates for the universal right to education and the freedom of his people in Sudan. In 2006, Deng and Eggers established the Valentino Achak Deng Foundation to help rebuild Sudanese communities by increasing access to educational opportunities. The Foundation’s first major initiative is to create a viable and community-driven educational center in Marial Bai, including a secondary school, a library, a teacher-training center, and a community center. Construction completed on the Marial Bai Secondary School in spring 2009, and classes started in May
For speaking engagements, Valentino is represented by The Lavin Agency. To visit his speaker page, click here. To invite Valentino to speak or for more information, contact Lavin: info@TheLavinAgency.com or by phone at 800-762-4234.
Abraham Awolich
Hometown: Kalthok, southern Sudan
Current region: Northeast U.S.
“My life story begins with me leaving my family in 1988 after government-sponsored militias attacked our village of Kalthok. I went to Ethiopia, then fled another war there and returned to Sudan. In 1992, our camps were attacked so we left on foot running. We settled in a small town east of Kapoeta, southern Sudan. When Kapoeta was overrun by the army, we were forced to flee at night. We lived as refugees in Kakuma camp for nine years before we resettled in America.”
Abraham Awolich has a Masters degree in Public Administration from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University; the nation’s top school in public administration and public affairs. He specialized in international development management and administration, public organizational management, human resource management, and public finance in developing countries. He was a winner of the World Bank Development Marketplace grant competition for $200,000 in 2007 to build a high school in Southern Sudan. He was awarded the national prestigious Samuel Huntington Public Service Award by the National Grid after his graduation in 2006. Abraham is one of the so called “lost boys” of Sudan.
Abraham is the founder and president of Sudan Development Foundation (SUDEF) and is committed to inspiring people—both Americans and members of the Sudanese diasporas—to get involved with development efforts in Southern Sudan. In 2006 after the signing of the peace agreement, he traveled back to Sudan for the first time in nearly years, and the destruction he saw convinced him that Southern Sudan needs access to education and skills in order to recover from decades of war. Abraham is working with his colleagues to address the shortage of skilled manpower in Southern Sudan by building community resource centers that offer both technical and vocational trainings and adult education.
Sudan Development Foundation envisions the people of Southern Sudan having the resources, knowledge, social support, and freedom to be self-reliant, productive and supportive members of their communities. SUDEF strives to break the cycle of poverty and dependence by working together with the community to solve the challenging problems they are facing. SUDEF’s mission is to provide educational, economic, agricultural, health and human development opportunities to transform and empower individuals and create economically viable, self-sustaining communities that can contribute to national prosperity and lasting peace.
As part of its efforts to build sustainable rural communities in Southern Sudan, SUDEF is launching a campaign called “Restoring Broken Communities and Rebuilding a Promising Future” a series of national speaking events. Abraham is the keynote speaker for “Restoring Broken Communities and Rebuilding a Promising Future” tour and will be traveling the East and the West Coasts to visit colleges, high schools, churches, and other organizations to spread SUDEF’s vision of breaking the cycle of poverty and dependence by working together with the community to solve the challenging problems they are facing.
To book Abraham please contact SUDEF at info@sudef.org or call 802 238 4448. You can talk directly to Abraham at aawolich@sudef.org or call 802 825 1248. Visit SUDEF website at :www.sudef.org
Franco Majok
Hometown: Wunlang, southern Sudan
Current region: Boston, MA
My payam in southern Sudan is Wunlang, a remote village in Northern Bhar el-Ghazal. My father was a police officer who had learned the value of education after working for the British—my four brothers and I were the only children from our village to be sent to school. Three of my brothers are still alive, but my brother Garang was killed during the civil war.
I became a refugee in 1983 when the civil war broke out. All high schools were closed. The Sudanese government targeted students from the south and it became very dangerous to live there. I used my education to escape to the north by reading maps and directions to get to a safe place.
I came to the United States in September 1998. My first job was as a houseman at a hotel in Boston, then I worked in an adult residential program for the Department of Mental Retardation. In 2000, when the “Lost Boys of Sudan” began to arrive in the United States, I applied and was hired as a bilingual, bi-cultural Case Manager with Lutheran Community Services.
In 2005, I received United States citizenship and was able to travel safely back to southern Sudan. I had not been “back home” for 23 years. I made the long journey to Wunlang first by plane, then by car, and finally I bicycled for over six hours to my village. Once there, I found that some children, many malnourished and impoverished, walk two hours to attend the only school in the village. Children sit outside under trees because they don’t have a school building. The needs are great. When I returned to America, I launched a project to build a school in Wunlang.
I am now living near Boston. I am married and have three children.
Bol Tem
Hometown: Aweil, southern Sudan
Current region: Washington, D.C.
I came to the U.S. on September 23, 1998; first I lived in Texas before moving to Virginia. In 2006, I started a beauty pageant called Miss South Sudan Beauty Pageant. The reason I started a beauty pageant is that I felt our southern Sudanese women had been isolated from the rest of world and had been left in the dark. I felt a beauty pageant would introduce them to the world, bring hope, and put smiles on their faces. We had our first beauty pageant in 2006 in Washington, D.C., with thirty-two contestants from across the U.S. and Canada. The second annual Miss South Sudan Beauty Pageant was on July 14, 2007, in Kansas City. The crown went to Ayok Monydit, who is studying biology and psychology at Rockhurst University in Kansas City.
This book by Dave Eggers tells the life story of Valentino Achak Deng, from his pre-war life in southern Sudan to his resettlement in the United States.
