Lost Boys Find Peace

Perhaps you've seen the movie "The Lost Boys" with Kiefer Sutherland. A group of teen-age guys are turned into a family of vampires who prey on a California town. But the real "Lost Boys" are not vampires. They're a small community of boys (about 120) from the African nation Sudan who live right here in Chicago. Recently, two of these Lost Boys-John Makeny Akuak and Paterno Onam Chrispino, both 26-scored a major victory. They graduated from college.

The odds were strongly against them. In the late 1980s and early 1990s the Sudan was awash in a bloody and brutal civil war. Teen-aged males of the minority tribes were often killed to prevent them from growing up and becoming soldiers. Even boys as young as 10 years old fled their homes and walked to Ethiopia just to survive. There, they were crowded into refugee camps. Sometimes their families were with them, but more often they were on their own. The boys and young men had endured unimaginable horrors back home, and lived through a harrowing escape and arduous journey that would test even the strongest athletes among them.

In the refugee camps aid workers tried to organize the boys and young men in order to continue (in some cases begin) their education. Akuak remembers how at first they had no text books, no classroom, no supplies of any kind-- how they learned to read and write by scratching letters in the dust sitting under a tree with a teacher. Yet many developed a hunger for learning that surpassed the physical hunger of their sojourn. They wanted to learn English, knowing that they would need it to better their situations.

Ten years ago, a group of concerned Chicagoans began sponsoring these young men as immigrants. At first, the guys would work any jobs they could get, in order to support themselves and send money back to their families. But their love of learning and the drive to thrive soon caught up with them. They wanted to go to college.

Akuak and Chrispino made deals with their employers, explaining that they were working not to get rich, but to support themselves and their families and pay for their education. Flexible schedules were arranged so that they could work and go to college.

Today, about 20 of the Lost Boys are students at St. Augustine College, Malcolm X College, Truman College, Northeastern Illinois University and North Park University. The whole community of Lost Boys is ecstatic that two are now graduating.

Today, the government that won the civil war is waging battle against some of its own citizens. Government-backed militias attack-and some say seek to wipe out-people from the Fur, Massalit and Zaghawa tribes. So there's no question of the Lost Boys returning to their homeland any time soon.

These young men had a choice to make: to fight violence with violence, to grow up and return to the Sudan as soldiers, or to find another way. Choosing education instead of war, they have come to understand the depth and complexity of violence and ways to work against it. The Lost Boys have found peace through education.

Catholic Connections

"All of society should make a much stronger commitment to education for the poor. Any long term solution to poverty must pay serious attention to education, public and private, in school and out of school. Lack of adequate education, especially in the inner city setting, prevents many poor people from escaping poverty. In addition, illiteracy condemns many to joblessness or chronically low wages. Moreover, it excludes them in many ways from sharing in the political and spiritual life of the community. Since poverty is fundamentally a problem of powerlessness and marginalization, the importance of education as a means of escaping it cannot be overemphasized."

- The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Economic Justice for All , #203e.

Reflection Questions

Sometimes school seems automatic and the subjects we study just so much blah-blah-blah and irrelevant. What can I do to make the most of my education, make the most of my life, and so learn to be a stronger peacebuilder?

Join us in our Forum to discuss these questions!