Building Minds in Sudan

Sebastian - a Lost Boy from Sudan - representing Building Minds in Sudan (BMIS) was our guest speaker this past week. In 1988 when he was 9 years old, he had to watch his 5-year-old sister be killed right in front of him when his village was attacked by militia. His mother yelled to him to run or he would suffer the same fate as his sister. So he ran, and then he walked – with no shoes - for 3 months until he reached a refugee camp in Ethiopia that would... be his home for the next 3 years. After that, he was forced to return to Sedan because of unrest in Ethiopia. Then, more walking to Kenya where he lived in a refugee camp for another year. When he was 12, he said he wanted to give up – that he wouldn’t have to feel all this if he weren’t here. A friend told him to just keep walking and they would see what tomorrow would bring.

At 14, he was introduced to education for the first time. By 21, he was reading at an 8th grade level. A group of Americans came to where he was living and asked if he wanted to go to America – he said that if he could get an education, he would go. He also wanted to be able to join the military to be able to return to rescue his mother. Sebastian had to learn how to adapt to Western culture – he had never even turned on a light switch. He received his 2-yr degree from MCC and then his 4-yr degree from SUNY Brockport. Sebastian has worked hard and worked in accounting for the last several years. He also took the test to become an American citizen.
 

In 2007, he returned to South Sudan to look for his mother and father to see if they had survived the wars; his mother was still alive, but his father had been killed right in front of his mother in 1993. He found his mother and also discovered he had a brother – his mother had been pregnant when he left at the age of 9. His brother wanted an education also, so Sebastian was able to fund his brother’s trip to Kenya for college. When in Sudan, Sebastian visited the “school” – which was children meeting under a tree – no building. Their pens were their fingers, and the dirt was their paper. Sebastian told them about how he went to school and how his brother was able to go to college, and they asked, “What about us?” So Sebastian built a school – he said, however, he would not build the school if girls were not allowed to attend; 98% of the women in Sudan at the time could not read or write because they were not allowed to go to school. Girls are allowed to attend up to age of 14, and there are currently 766 children attending his school.

 His life makes us remember many things: that we live in the greatest country in the world (how lucky we are), to never give up, that one person can make the biggest difference, that life is short and not guaranteed to anyone, to spend time with the people we love, and to continue helping others in any way we can.