Sean Taberman's Articles: News-feature

News-Feature: John Bul Dau “Lost boy of Sudan,” Speaks At Champlain

A highly anticipated event in the upcoming semester at Champlain College, hosted by the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, is a lecture scheduled for Martin Luther King Day by John Bul Dau. One of the storied “Lost Boys of Sudan,” Dau is one of over 27,000 boys who were driven from their homes and villages, when the northern Arab government invaded and attacked the ethnic minority population of Southern Sudan in 1987. Dau’s visit to the campus will include several personal meetings with students and staff members, as well as a public lecture event, which is open to the community and held on Monday January 18th at 6 pm.

In 1987 when Dau’s village was attacked by government troops, violence scattered his family, and he was forced to travel on foot for three months, until reaching the relative safety of Ethiopia. For four years Dau stayed in a refugee camp there, but when civil war broke out, once again, he was forced to flee for his life a second time. One of thousands of “Lost Boys,” Dau wandered for hundreds of miles facing harsh conditions including disease, starvation and intense violence. Finally he arrived in Kenya, where he lived in the Kenyan Kakuma refugee camp. For the first time he was able to attend school at the age of 17, and earned a prestigious Kenyan Certificate for Secondary Education in 2000. In 2001 Dau, alongside 140 other young Sudanese refugees, was selected to immigrate to the United States and settled in Syracuse, New York.

Despite experiencing an initial culture shock, Dau has been successful in the U.S. and can confidently say he is living the American dream. Not only was he able to earn his Associates degree from Onondago Community College while working 60 hours a week as a security guard, but also he was able to afford his mother and sister’s passage from Sudan to America, so they could join him and live comfortably and peacefully. Currently he is working toward a degree in Policy Studies from Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.

During his time in the United States, Dau has become an experienced social entrepreneur, and virtually single-handedly founded three non-profit organizations. In 2003 he established the Sudanese Lost Boys Foundation of Central New York, raising over 35,000 in books and medical expenses for Lost Boys living in the U.S. Later on in 2005, Dau played a monumental role in founding the American Care for Sudan Foundation, Which created funds to build and run the Duk Lost Boys Clinic in Southern Sudan. He has raised more than $400,000 for the clinic and is currently the president of the John Dau Sudan Foundation, founded in July of 2007 to develop health facilities, which do not exist currently for most of the populations of Sudan.

The early experiences of Dau in his immigration to the United States are the focus of a film titled, “God Grew Tired of Us,” a film that won the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. National Geographic Press released his memoir, of the same title, in January of 2007.

Dau has earned many awards for his public achievements and charitable work in his brief time, here in the U.S. This includes receiving a National Geographic’s Emerging Explorers award, as well as being named a Volvo for Life Award finalist in the Quality of Life Category in 2008, earning him a contribution of $25,000 to the John Dau Sudan Foundation. As he continues to work toward success in the United States he envisions a positive future for Sudan saying, “I hope for my country to get out of war and secure a good government. I want Sudan to become a place where people are welcome and hope is restored.”

Angela Batista, the director of Champlain’s office of Diversity and Inclusion, says that the opportunity to bring Dau to Burlington is the result of a collaborative effort by many divisions and departments at the college. Dau’s efforts for political and social change have assured that his voice, and the voice of the Sudanese is heard here in the U.S. and around the world. According to Batista, “He has become a successful national public speaker, focusing speeches on his life story and the importance of perseverance against all odds. His moving talks also focus on the importance of human rights, and ending the tragedy in Southern Sudan. “I believe this will be a great event for Champlain, and the local community. We are truly grateful that John Dau will be here with us on Martin Luther King Day,” Batista commented.