“For those children, no one can put them through school … they don’t have support anywhere else. When I set up this one so they can go to school, they get health care, they live in a good environment where they’re studying … education is the key of everything,” says Aduk Dau, founder of Lost Children of Jonglei Scholarships.
This week, we join Aduk Dau at her Women's Afternoon Tea fundraiser and see the inspiring story about her passion to provide secondary school education to vulnerable South Sudanese youth, displaced by civil war and living as refugees in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya.
“I started this charity because I was a refugee myself. I lived with refugees for seven years before I came to Australia. When the war started, we’re just walking in the bush. You don’t know where your next meal is, you don’t know where your next drinking water is … and when I lived in the camp, my life was not a good life.”
Aduk was born and raised in the southern provinces of Sudan. Life with her large family was idyllic until civil unrest between the north and the south escalated into war.
In the last thirty-two years, the southern region of Sudan has gained its independence and today is the country of South Sudan, but life there has never been able to return to the peaceful days Aduk experienced as a child.
As a result, millions of Sudanese and South Sudanese having been living as internally displaced refugees or in camps, like Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. Those who originally fled many years ago are now grandparents to a third generation still living in the harsh conditions of life as a refugee.
Aduk and her family were granted humanitarian visas for a new start in Australia twenty-five years ago, and Aduk’s passion to help those left behind has never wavered.
In 2017, she founded the Lost Children of Jonglei Scholarships, which gifts secondary school education to South Sudanese youth living as refugees in Kakuma Refugee Camp. Administered through Anglican Aid, in 2026, the charitable project will see its thirtieth student granted the opportunity of a better future through the power of education and the doors it unlocks to positive change.
During the fundraiser, Aduk shares two videos from scholarship recipients who express the extraordinary difference their secondary school education will mean, not only for them, but for the communities they are a part of.
“All those children, since they started, every time you interview them, they say, ‘I will give back to my community’”, Aduk shares.
The Australian community rallying around Aduk in her work is also not to be ignored. Belinda, who helps Aduk manage the project, knows how important it is to create a pathway for every-day people to make the world a better place.
“I’d really love it if the attendees could go home with a greater knowledge of what’s happening outside of our very comfortable life that we have here in Australia. I’d love them to feel empowered that they can also be equipped to make a difference in the world. You know, we’re all just ordinary people, but together, we can make such a big difference.”
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