The Middlesex Country Museum and Historical Society sponsors presentation by “Lost Boy” John Dau
On Sunday, July 24 at 4PM the Middlesex County, Virginia Museum and Historical Society hosted a web presentation by John Dau titled “A Child of Duk Payuel.” It is the story of a Lost Boy from the Sudan who continues to be shaped by the positive aspects of the rural South Sudan community in which he was raised.
The “Lost Boys of Sudan” were a group of approximately 27,000 who were displaced from their communities during the second Sudanese Civil War. The war, which began in 1983, pitted a largely Arab Northern Sudanese government against sub-Saharan tribes in the South of the Country; it would eventually end in the partition of the nation and the creation of the separate nation of South Sudan. The Lost Boys were those fled from the fighting and became separated from their parents, many of whom had died. They were forced to fend for themselves, facing hunger, disease, and attacks by Arab militia and by unfriendly tribes both in their own country and in the neighboring country of Ethiopia in they sought refuge. John Dau, who was one of the Lost Boys, helped lead a group of 1,200 on the six-month trek from the Sudan to the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya in 1992. 800 survived the trip. In 2001, Dau was selected to emigrate to the United States and settled in Syracuse, New York, where he ultimately would receive a bachelor’s degree from Syracuse University.
His incredible story is the subject of the award-winner film God Grew Tired of Us, [see Suggested Media – John Dau Foundation (johndaufoundationsouthsudan.org)],.
John is currently a global scholar in residence at the Collegiate School in Richmond and the head of the John Dau Foundation, which provides medical and other assistance to internally displaced persons in the South Sudan. He will be speaking about how the people, history, and beauty of the rural South Sudan community of his childhood positively impacted his life experience.
To learn more about John Dau and his work in the Sudan Visit:
https://watchdocumentaries.com/god-grew-tired-of-us
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/education/god-grew-tired-us-education/
