The Lost Boys of Sudan

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The Lost Boys of Sudan
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Enduring Understandings Survival

• Your life is shaped by both internal and external
  influences of which you may or may not have
  control.
• In order to survive in your environment, you must
  continually adapt.
• What does it take to adapt?
• Survival requires resiliency, courage, and inner
  strength.
• What does it take to survive?
• Our lives are tested by society, by
  ourselves, by other people, and by nature.
• Why do life forms need to adapt to survive?

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The Lost Boys of Sudan

• Much as been written about the Lost Boys of
  Sudanbut few have paid attention to it. Why?
  Perhaps because its a Civil War. Perhaps
  because it concerns Africa and we pay little
  attention to Africa as this continent has little
  impact on us economically or politically. And
  perhaps because we havent as yet figured out
  that what happens in the Sudan may have a large
  impact eventually on our war on terrorism. But
  this is the story of the Lost Boys of the
  Sudan. It is a true story of 3,800 boys who came
  here in 2001 to avoid certain death at home. Yet
  today, in many places in Sudan genocide
  continues, famine and disease are rampant, and
  the will to survive is continually begin tested.
  How did these boys adapt? Where did they get the
  resiliency, the courage, the will and the
  strength to survive? It is an amazing,
  heart-wrenching story of survival.

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Sudan The 10th Largest Country in the World

• Sudan, the 10th largest country by area in the
  world, has known little peace. Historically, the
  North of Sudan has had closer ties with Egypt and
  is predominantly Arab and Muslim while the South
  is predominantly black, with a mixture of
  Christianity and Animism.

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Sudan A Land of Civil Wars

• Sudan's independent history has been dominated by
  chronic, exceptionally cruel warfare that has
  divided the country on racial, religious, and
  regional grounds displaced an estimated four
  million people (of a total population of
  thirty-two million) and killed at least two
  million people. It has damaged Sudan's economy
  and led to food shortages, resulting in
  starvation and malnutrition.

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Northern Sudan A Home to Muslin Jihadists
Terrorists

• Sudan was once under British rule. With
  independence, though, came Civil Wars. South
  Sudan has always wanted to be free of Northern
  Sudan due to religious and racial differences.
  North Sudan is Muslin and Arab and Southern Sudan
  is black and Christian. Jihadists in the North
  continue to encourage war and these fanatics
  continue to rape, torture, main and kill those
  living in Darfur and other parts of Sudan despite
  peace agreements.

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The Story of the Lost Boys of Sudan

• For 21 long years, the Civil War lasted in Sudan,
  ending by a peace agreement in 2005. During this
  time millions died, not only by fighting, but
  more by being displacedlosing their homes and
  their villages. Those who escaped the soldiers
  often died of the Black Death, malnutrition,
  malaria and starvation.

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Who Are the Lost Boys of Sudan?

• Actually, the Lost Boys of Sudan is an
  organization started to try to find homes for the
  1000s of boys in Sudan who were orphaned. These
  boys who escaped the fighting had to run for
  their lives and try to make it to a safe haven.

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The Boys Alone

• Why just boys? Girls in the villages were either
  killed, raped, or taken as slaves for the Arabs
  in the North. The boys escaped because they were
  either out tending herds when their villages were
  bombed or slaughtered by soldiers or they were
  near the rain forest and could escape there. So
  boys of all ages started a journey toward finding
  sanctuary in Ethiopia.

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The Journey Lasted for Years

• It was no small journey of days or weeksin many
  cases it took years. Thousands died trying to
  find asylum. They died of thirst, of hunger, of
  eating mud to get the water out of it. They died
  crossing rivers they could not swim. 100s were
  eaten by crocodiles. Some just sat down and died
  of weariness.

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And After Ethiopia it was Kenya

• Those who reached Ethiopia found refugee camps.
  But as the war progressed, Ethiopia closed their
  camps and again they were forced to seek safety
  .this time in Kenya.a journey of 1000 miles
  across harsh land,wide rivers, and wild animals.
  Again 1000s died thousands of boys from five
  to18.

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And For Some the Last Journey From the Camps Was
to the United States

• By 2001, the world was finally paying attention.
  The Lost Boys of Sudan organization was formed
  and 3,800 boys were brought to 100 cities in the
  US. Media attention was huge. Their stories were
  told and the United Nations began acting more
  responsibly. Pictured here are four of the
  boys in their apartment in Fargo, ND.

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The Lost Boys in the US

• These boys now look like typical Americans. But
  it has been very, very difficult for them. Those
  psychiatrists who treat children like these have
  said they are the most traumatized war children
  they have ever seen. But why not? Their families
  slaughtered, the sights they saw on their
  journey, the torture of the journey itself is
  worse than we can even imagine. One is pictured
  here being interviewed before coming here.

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The Lost Boys in the US

• The goal in bringing the boys was to provide them
  with education and the chance of a good life. But
  it has been very hard on them. They had to learn
  the language, the customs, and a whole new and
  very different world--- all the while feeling
  both glad to be here, guilty about other boys not
  so fortunate, and missing home.

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Some of the Lost Boys Decide to Return home to
the Sudan

• Salva Dut, attended college to study so that he
  could return home and teach villagers how to
  drill wells and provide them with water. A boy
  who nearly died of thirst and exhaustion wanted
  to ensure that others have a chance at a better
  life.

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And He Kept His Promise

• This is Salva Dut today. With courage, resiliency
  and great determination he became the founder of
  the Water for Sudan project. Here he poses beside
  a hand pump well he installed in Akok village in
  Tonj, Sudan in May, 2005.

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And There Are Others, Too, Who Will Go Home

• Meet Wol Bol Wol, studying medicine at Huntsville
  College in Alabama who plans to return home and
  serve the people in the camps and in Sudan.

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And There Are Those Who Love Their New Home

• Becoming an American citizen at a ceremony in
  Houston, here is shown one of the Lost Boys who
  has found peace and safety at last in America.

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But It Is Not Over Yet

• Sadly, after the peace agreement was signed in
  2005, militant muslins decided to practice more
  genocide and in the provide of Darfur continue to
  slaughter and kill.Over 200,000 more have died
  and the refugee camps are today overflowing.

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The Refugee Camps Are Full of People Who Make It
There Near Death

• It is the hardest on the children. The journey
  to the camps are long. Death is common there.
  Over 80 children die a day. Although more support
  is being given, it is not enough.For years the
  world has watched and let this happenand it
  continues to do the same. For blacks and
  Christians in Sudan, there is little real hope in
  the near future.

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Sudan is Still A Land Where Those In Power Do Not
Value Human Rights or Life

• Although Northern Sudans economy is good and
  life there looks as it would anywhere, the Muslin
  extremists do not want the Southern region to
  form their own countrywhich has been promised by
  2011. The world continues to wait and watch. The
  world needs to look at these camps--- like the
  picture here where a daughter sits next to the
  body of her mother who just died of malnutrition.

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The Lost Boys of Sudan Will Never Be Free
Until Their Country is Free

• What an amazing story of survival. Boys who
  walked more than a 1000 miles to survive. Boys
  who spent years trying to survive. Its hard to
  imagine that kind of determination to live. At
  least we have helped save a few and given them
  the promise of hope and a better life.

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What This Unit Is About

• For the next two weeks, you will be reading
  different articles about the Lost Boys of Sudan
  and others who have learned to survive. During
  this time, you will be learning new strategies to
  help you read more fluently and to help you
  better understand what you read. You will have
  multiple opportunities to work with others and to
  share what you have read. At the end of the unit
  you will be asked to use what you have read and
  write your new understanding of the will to
  survive.