Lost Boys Face Foundation

LOST BOYS MAKE A DIFFERENCE

Ayuel Leek Deng and Beny Ngor Chol, two of the authors of Courageous Journey, have plans to make a difference in this world, using their experiences and expertise. Through their new non-profit organization, Lost Boys Face Foundation, they are working toward creating a Multi-Purpose

Ayuel Deng Leek

Center for the disabled in Southern Sudan. Here’s the plan:

LBFF Initial Project:

Multi-Purpose Vocational Center to be located in Southern Sudan

Beny Ngor Chol

Concept: A Multi-Purpose Vocational Center will be built to host a variety of activities to benefit disabled men, women and children. These individuals will be trained in marketable skills, such as carpentry, masonry, weaving, clothing manufacture, metal work, tanning and leather work, growing vegetables and preparation of food, basic medical skills for helping to run a medical clinic for minor illnesses and first aid.

All these products will be sold to the local community. The profit will be shared between the disabled producer and the Center. In time, the Center will become self-supporting and the disabled self-reliant.

Classes will also be taught to both the disabled and the community at large on such topics as sanitation, sign language for the deaf, family planning and prevention of sexually-transmitted diseases.

Special chair made by Beny's staff for handicapped child

The need: Sudan is a war-torn country with a 2008 population of 39,445,000, over 40% under the age of 15. The long civil war between the North (Arabic Muslim) and the South (Black Christian and Animist) took two million lives and displaced four million people, many of whom still live in refugee camps outside the country. According to Dr. John Garang, head of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army and Vice-President of Sudan after the Peace Agreement in 2005 (until his untimely death shortly thereafter), estimated that 39.2% of the people of Sudan are disabled, most from war injuries and mutilation by having hands or legs cut off.

Expertise to make the project a reality: Beny Chol, Executive Director of LBFF, served as Manager of the Community-Based Rehabilitation Program in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, beginning at age 18. As a Lost Boy himself, he worked under the direction of the International Rescue Committee and had 120 paid staff under him. In addition, 595 volunteers formed the Community Based Rehabilitation Committee who helped identify, register, and organize the disabled for the program. He supervised the types of programs envisioned for the Multi-Purpose Center.

Ayuel Leek, President of LBFF, also a Lost Boy, worked with the Jesuit Refugee Service in Kakuma. He was trained in counseling, visiting the sick, and helping children deal with their war traumas through drama.

Both Beny and Ayuel are still in contact with several persons, both disabled and not, who worked in Kakuma and are skillful and willing to make this dream a reality. One such person is Claudio Suleiman, who is disabled himself. He worked with Beny for the International Rescue Committee as one of the counterpart managers in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. He currently lives in Juba, Southern Sudan, where he oversees staff for the World Food Programme as Human Resource Manager.  He has agreed to lend his expertise to this project at the ground.

Other Americans, board members and donors, as well as Beny and Ayuel,  will periodically make visits to see how the Center is progressing.

Real Possibilities: Beny has just returned from 3 months in Kenya and Sudan. He found land near Juba, virtual capital of Southern Sudan, that would be ideal for the Center—near population and the Nile River. He talked with the Land Commissioner and Land Title Officer about their dream. The city leaders told him if the Foundation could raise enough money to build and staff the Center, they would donate the land!! This is a miracle in itself, making the project an obtainable goal for the near future, bringing hope to hundreds of disabled children and adults in this region.

To be part of making this dream a reality, mail your tax-deductible 501 (c) (3) check, made out to Lost Boys Face Foundation to:

Mr. Beny Ngor Chol, Executive Director

Lost Boys Face Foundation

Proposed site for Multi-Purpose Center near Juba, Sudan

3653 N. Cleveland Ave.

Kansas City, MO 64117

Thank you!

The LBFF Board

Beny Ngor Chol, Executive Director

Ayuel Leek Deng, President

Zach Amal, Treasurer

Samuel Malek

Simon Majak

 

MANUTE BOL Turalei School

January 10, 2009

Sudan Sunrise will break ground along with Manute Bol for a new school in Turalei, not far from Abyei, for some 300 children who have no school except the shade of trees. According to Bol this will give Sudan a giant example of reconciliation. His school will welcome Darfurian and other Muslim students. And Darfurians are volunteering to help build it as a sign of reconciliation.

This move toward reconciliation is quite significant in light of what the New York Times warns is a “fragile” peace between the Muslim North and the largely Christian and Animist South. For more about the project,Sudan Sunrise. Then scroll down to Manute Bol Turalei School Project.

 

LOST BOYS MAKE A DIFFERENCE

LOST BOYS MAKE A DIFFERENCE

Ayuel Leek Deng and Beny Ngor Chol, co-authors (with Barbara Youree)of Courageous Journey, have plans to make a difference in this world, using their experiences and expertise. Through their new non-profit organization, Lost Boys Face Foundation, they are working toward creating a Multi-Purpose Center for the disabled in Southern Sudan. Here’s the plan:

LBFF Initial Project:
Multi-Purpose Center to be located in Southern Sudan

Concept: A Multi-Purpose Center will be built to host a variety of activities to benefit disabled men, women and children. These individuals will be trained in marketable skills, such as carpentry, masonry, weaving, clothing manufacture, metal work, tanning and leather work, growing vegetables and preparation of food, basic medical skills for helping to run a medical clinic for minor illnesses and first aid.

All these products will be sold to the local community. The profit will be shared between the disabled producer and the Center. In time, the Center will become self-supporting and the disabled self-reliant.

Classes will also be taught to both the disabled and the community at large on such topics as sanitation, sign language for the deaf, family planning and prevention of sexually-transmitted diseases.

The need: Sudan is a war-torn country with a 2008 population of 39,445,000, over 40% under the age of 15. The long civil war between the North (Arabic Muslim) and the South (Black Christian and Animist) took two million lives and displaced four million people, many of whom still live in refugee camps outside the country. According to Dr. John Garang, head of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army and Vice-President of Sudan after the Peace Agreement in 2005 (until his untimely death shortly thereafter), estimated that 39.2% of the people of Sudan are disabled, most from war injuries and mutilation by having hands or legs cut off.

Beny and some of his staff at Kakuma

Expertise to make the project a reality: Beny Chol, President of LBFF, served as Manager of the Community-Based Rehabilitation Program in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. As a Lost Boy himself, he worked under the direction of the International Rescue Committee and had 120 paid staff under him. In addition, 595 volunteers formed the Community Based Rehabilitation Committee who helped identify, register, and organize the disabled for the program. He supervised the types of programs envisioned for the Multi-Purpose Center.

Ayuel Leek, Vice-President of LBFF, also a Lost Boy, worked with the Jesuit Refugee Service in Kakuma. He was trained in counseling, visiting the sick, and helping children deal with their war traumas through drama.

Both Beny and Ayuel are still in contact with several persons, both disabled and not, who worked in Kakuma and are skillful and willing to make this dream a reality. They and other Americans, board members and donors will periodically make visits to see how the Center is progressing. Beny will be in Kenya and Sudan in December 2008 and January 2009. He will check out possibilities of purchasing property for the Center in Juba, Jongulei or Unity State. He has contacts in these areas.

To be part of making this dream a reality, go to Lost Boys Face Foundation and click on Contact Us.

 

Manute Bol Reaches Out

Manute Bol’s Tall Order
“The key to peace is education”

Much has been said and written about Manute Bol and most of the focus has been on his fabulous nine-year career as the tallest person to ever play in the NBA. But there is a deeper side to the seven-foot seven native of Sudan who resides in Olathe, KS and calls the village of Turalei in Southern Sudan his home.

An un-educated young man when he came to the U.S. to attend school and play basketball in 1983, Manute has since come to place a high value on education. He knows that one of the important keys to peace in Sudan is education for its children. There are 100 students and five teachers in Manute’s home village, but no schoolhouse. They teach and learn under trees and when it rains, as it often does in Southern Sudan, there is no school.

HERE IS YOUR OPPORTUNITY TO HELP MANUTE BUILD A SCHOOL IN TURALEI. A team is forming to make construction of a school a reality for the children in Manute’s home village. Will you help? Click on SUDAN SUNRISE on Blogroll to findout how.

 

Some Background

Only recently have Americans heard much about the country of Sudan in far away Africa. We get a few images on nightly news about the horrible conditions in the refugee camps where Darfurians have fled from their burned villages and where they are continually attacked raped and starved.

But during the civil war in that country (1983-2005) the coverage was near nil. In 1990 during the First Gulf War, Sudan was totally blocked out. Their government did not back the U.S.

During that first civil war, atrocities beyond belief were happening while most of the rest of the world went merrily shopping and keeping up with their favorite sports teams. Over 2 million died and thousands more were displaced.

In a nutshell, the Black, Christian and Animist South rebelled against the Arabic, Muslim government’s oppression in the North out of the capitol in Khartoum. They sought to restrict religious freedom, enforce Islamic sharia laws, deny education, refuse to share the wealth, and even attempt to move the North/South dividing line to place the newly discovered oil fields into the North.

To help move southern Sudanese off this oil rich land, the government enlisted the help of the Darfurians (Baggara tribes) who were black like the Southerners, but Muslim like the Arabic Northerners. They armed them with guns, tanks and horses. “You don’t want to be ruled over by infidels, do you?” they were told.