The Story of Mator Ajak – Cofounder of Village Education Fund

I was born in Pinychuier village near Wangulei in Jonglei state.  Like many kids in my village, I grew up looking after goats and cows.  We lived on grains, millets, sorghums, fish, milk, vegetables, etc. Life was simple yet meaningful. We heard of war stories from time to time from soldiers, siblings and neighbors. When the war reached my village, I had to experience it for the first time and was very much terrified over the prospect that life would never be the same again.  The village was scorched and razed down.   Goats and cows were taken and people were getting killed left and right, including my brother and nephew plus several of my extended family members. The village was in despair. Only wild animals had plenty over the remains of the dead.  It was the rainy season.   We lived in low, swampy land that overflowed and transgressed during the rainy season and this time was no different.

The painful journey starts very fast for a young kid like a game. It was as if we would come back in the next couple of days but the long treks never ended.  It took me through the swampy land by the Nile to the torrent of the Equatoria mountainous region to the desert of northern Kenya, where I was granted refugee status in Kakuma Refugee Camp in 1992.  Kakuma refugee camp was hosting refugees from Sudan, Somalia, Burundi, Congo, and Ethiopia at the time.  It was at capacity at the time for a newly started refugee camp but it later grew to over one hundred thousand people instantly and those numbers have been surpassed as of this writing. The Kakuma camp is still open today 25 years later. The children that were born there are now fathers and mothers. It has become a nation, a newfound land of its own as those children know nothing of the countries of their parents, only through stories.  The refugee camp opened up education institutions, mainly the primary schools, and later followed by secondary schools.  I started my ABCs there and I remember this like it was yesterday under the trees, sitting on stones with no writing stationeries. We crammed in lesson after lesson and practiced writing on the dirt. This was not sustainable.  Later on, the UN (United Nations) opened up more learning spaces and offered to build schools and provided desks and stationeries. Regardless of how little there was in the camp in terms of proper meals and medications, there was a dream being sown for many children like me. I was able to get elementary and secondary education in the refugee camp like the rest of the children there. The prospect of a better life was brewing with hope and determination.   I was very determined and wanted to get educated in any way possible in the face of difficulties that existed.

By the grace of God, I was one of the selected few to be resettled in the United States of America as part of the Lost Boys and Girls of Sudan.  I came to Phoenix, Arizona on March 28th, 2001, under the care of the International Rescue Committee. They took care of me for the first 90 days with housing and other basic needs. After that, they helped with job placement and the rest was history.

With new life came a new beginning, opportunities and new challenges.  I had to learn fast.  By June of 2001, I had my first job and by December of that same year, I got a car and by the spring of 2002, I was enrolled at a community college. I worked the night shift and went to school by day like others.   In the spring of 2005, I graduated from a community college and then transferred to Arizona State University where I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in May 2008. I took some time off school and then attended Grand Canyon University, where I graduated in 2011 with an MBA.

After graduation, a new chapter of my life began.  I am now a father of 4 little boys. Over the summer of 2016, I took them back to my village of Pinychuier together with my wife for the first time since I left in 1991. My wife was barely 3 months old when she moved from there. It was a homecoming for both of us and one that provided me a sense of closure and unearthed a lot of childhood memories.  I was able to find my old home ground that we deserted over 25 years ago and even some trees were still there waiting for my return. I was very emotional but contained and immediately felt for the village kids.  I saw my former self in them.

Although life can seem challenging in America at times, I think of the village kids wandering after goats and cows again like I once was. When I left the village, I re-enacted parts of my journey that started in my village over 25 years ago by going through the same routes up to Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya but, this time in a mini-bus. The village is now livable under extreme circumstances.  No medicines, few huts, barely running water and list goes on and on.

On the ground of my old home, I saw 2 to 3 thatched huts with few stones under in rows and no blackboard.  I was told that it was a primary school. Reflecting back, we didn’t have even a hut back then as a primary school, at least there is somewhere to start!

The civil war in Sudan ran for decades before the eventual independence of South Sudan in July 2011.  Along the painful quest for freedom, the wars that were fought have left a lot of scars and trauma among many people within South Sudan and that manifested itself in the 2013 conflict.  The SPLM/A – Sudan People Liberation Movement/Army was the dominant leading force since 1983 until becoming independent.  During the long war of liberation struggle, many disagreements over the vision and what the SPLM/A would achieve caused major splits and setbacks, resulting in infighting within the movement.  Those setbacks resurfaced again in the last couple of years, where basically the development of the country was halted.  The wars waged caused extreme division within South Sudan.  The only tool that will change and reinvent South Sudan is education so the next generation can find alternative solutions to national issues.  By educating the young, the future becomes bright and new opportunities are bound to rise.

In 2018, we did a feasibility assessment when a friend and I traveled to the Village of Pinychuier to see what could be done in the short and long term.  We came back and formulated how we can address the school structure issue and decided that we will start with at least 4 classroom structures.  This is what led to the founding of Village Education Fund, Inc to aid with the fundraising need to rally up the resources necessary to complete the much-needed school in the village.  The project is going to be a collaboration of the community in the village via participatory philosophy, where we will all see to it that a school is built.  The village will offer up the labor and Village Education Fund, Inc will pool resources to bring the project to fruition.

We believe in this noble cause and hope that people of good conscious will join us in this endeavor.  Will you be one?