John Dau, also known as Dhieu-Deng Leek, is one of the Lost Boys of Sudan who was featured in the 2006 award-winning documentary God Grew Tired of Us. Today, he is a father himself and a human rights activist for the people of South Sudan. In 2007, he founded the John Dau Foundation which aims to transform healthcare in South Sudan. Dau was born into the Dinka tribe in war-torn Sudan. In 1987, his village of Duk Payuel in Duk County, Jonglei was attacked by government troops involved in the Second Sudanese Civil War between the Muslim-controlled government in northern Sudan and the non-Muslims in Southern Sudan. The violence scattered his family, and Dau was forced to travel on foot for three months until reaching the relative safety of Ethiopia. Dau stayed in a refugee camp in Ethiopia for four years, but when civil war broke out in the region, he was once again forced to flee. As one of thousands of “Lost Boys of Sudan,” Dau wandered hundreds of miles and faced disease, starvation, animal attacks and violence, until arriving in Kenya. While living in the Kenyan Kakuma refugee camp, he attended school for the first time. In 2001, he was one of 3,800 young Sudanese refugees resettled in the United States.

Get bonus content on Patreon

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.