MuseumDESCRIPTION:
Listen to the amazing story of how a group of American students connected with a Sudanese student to build a better future.
TRANSCRIPT:
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: Welcome to this week’s “Voices on Genocide Prevention.” This is Bridget Conley-Zilkic. Today, I have two students from George Washington University. One is Zach Hindon, who’s a junior, and the other is Makwei Mabior, a freshman who has a rather extraordinary story on how he came to George Washington University. We’ll start with Makwei. Can you tell us where you’re from originally?
MAKWEI MABIOR: Well, I’m from Sudan, the southern part of the country. That’s where I was born, where I was raised for the first six years of my life. But I was staying for most of my life in Kenya in a refugee camp called Kakuma in northern Kenya.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: And why did you leave Sudan?
MAKWEI MABIOR: I left Sudan in 1992 because of the war that started in 1983, before even I was born. So the war was between the rebels that were fighting the government. That was for most part in southern Sudan. So the rebels were having a bit of the upper hand and so the government was trying to root out where the rebels were getting their support. One of the things that they did was attacking the villages where they think that these rebels are getting their new recruitment, where they are getting their food, where they are getting most of the information about the government troops and everything.
What they did was they attacked most of the villages. And, me, I’m a Dinka, and the rebel movement were led by Dinkas. So they start attacking not only the Dinkas, but all the other tribes that were supporting the rebels. That is how it started in 1991, ’92. It became worse in the year 1992. That year, our village was attacked. We depend on cattle and crops, but mostly on cattle. Our cattle were taken, some of the crops that we had were destroyed, and the houses were burned down. So we had nowhere to survive. That’s when we decided that we should move out of this area, because it has been going on for a number of years, 1990, 1991 -- 1992, it became worse.
That’s when we decided to move from a village to another part of Dinka land. We were not intending to move to Kenya, but when the other part of Dinka land, which is Bor, was attacked, we moved again to Western Equatoria. It is part of southern Sudan. But from there, we became strangled between the government troops fighting the rebels, and the rebels fighting the government. The capital city of Southern Sudan, it is called Juba. So the rebels were moving toward Juba, fighting the government, and that is where we are pushed out of our village. So life became very hard. Every day there was shelling. We can get airplanes bombing the places where the rebels were operating, as well as where the refugees were staying, the IDP’s [internally displaced people].
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: And how old were you when your home village was attacked?
MAKWEI MABIOR: The first attack was in 1990, but we left in 1992, when I was at the age of six. So when we left, I was at the age of six.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: And then moving from place to place with the war following you?
MAKWEI MABIOR: Yes, we moved from one part of Sudan to the other.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: And who was with you?
MAKWEI MABIOR: First, I was with my two parents, my mother and my father, but when we reached Bor, we lost my mother, so I moved with my stepmother and my father.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: You became separated from your mother, or she was killed in an attack?
MAKWEI MABIOR: No, she wasn’t killed.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: Oh, good.
MAKWEI MABIOR: We got separated.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: And when you finally made the decision to go to Kenya with your family, what was the camp like there?
MAKWEI MABIOR: It’s not that really that we made a decision. We didn’t even know that there was a country called Kenya. What happened is that we were just being pushed out of Sudan until we reached the border, you know that place? We call it by the local people, who call themselves Turkanas. When we were pushed out of Sudan, the UNHCR [United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees] was at the Kenyan border. That is when we were aware that we were in Kenya.
Life was actually bad, because there was shelling from the government side, shelling the rebels, and the rebel were living where we were staying, because that is the only place that was available for both the rebels and those people who were fleeing away from the fighting. We were being shelled by the government troops. You can also get some airplanes like the Antinov bombing the places. It was really hard. The people were terrified. There was nothing that you could eat, there was no water, and there was fighting from day to day.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: And you saw people suffering all around you, as well?
MAKWEI MABIOR: Of course, yes, so you can see children dying of hunger. The old people who cannot move. And most of the people were depending on cow milk, and what they were being given is just the corn, which they were not used to. So you get a lot of people dying because the diet is totally different from what they are used to, and they couldn’t cope with that.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: And their bodies just couldn’t take it?
MAKWEI MABIOR: They can’t. They couldn’t.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: So you said there was no decision to flee Sudan. You simply kept running to get away from the war…
MAKWEI MABIOR: Right, right.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: … and found yourself in Kenya.
MAKWEI MABIOR: That is true. By the way, we’re not even aware that there’s a country called Kenya. It’s only when we came to the border, then we were told that we were in another different country and we had to adjust to the life of that country. We didn’t know that there was a Kenya.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: So once in Kenya in a refugee camp, you escaped then the immediate threat of violence, but what were the challenges for you and your family inside the refugee camp?
MAKWEI MABIOR: Well, first, when we arrived in 1992, it was a bit of a relief because the there was no fighting. We’re able to get food, water, and can sleep soundly without worrying about being attacked at night. So the first years that we were there from ’92 up to 1996 life was a bit okay, but after 1996, life changed. One of the reasons was we got other people from different countries coming to Kakuma, so you got from Uganda, from Rwanda, Burundi, Eritrea, Somali, and so the camp became congested, and the few resources that the UNHCR was providing to refugees became scarce.
We started experiencing shortages of water. Food was not adequate. Material that were given out, like clothes, were stopped being given out. They also give us shelter, so it took much time for someone to get his house repaired or to get a new [house]. So life again becomes hard, coupled with the environment. That place is a desert. Where we were in Equatoria is a forest, so you can have rainy season, dry season. But here it’s always dry season, so get strong winds, too hot in daytime. At night, it’s very cold, and we don’t have good clothes. So at first it was good. After some time, it wasn’t.
Also, you’ve got some of the local people who are just depending on their cattle. When they see we have been given food by the UNHCR, they start complaining that why they’ve been given food and we … So at night, they would come and rob people with their guns. So, again, we started hearing the sound of the gun. That’s just outside of Sudan, and so it is different. Up to now when I left, that is the level that took place.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: And how did you manage to get an education within those very difficult circumstances?
MAKWEI MABIOR: It is that very difficult circumstances that forced me to, because here you have no choice. There is no hope unless you can make something out of the life, of the best situation that you are in. So when we arrived in the camp from 1992 to 1993, the Lutheran World Federation Service starting building a school for the refugees. In 1994, I joined this school. I had to study because that was the only way that I can make something better out of the life that I was in.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: And, Zach, I want to ask you a few questions now, too. You’re a junior at George Washington University. Where are you from originally?
ZACH HINDIN: I was born and raised in South Florida.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: In South Florida. And when did you first hear about Sudan and about the conflicts in the South and also in Darfur?
ZACH HINDIN: Well, I used to do speech and debate as an extracurricular activity in high school. And I remember it was probably my freshman or sophomore year when someone mentioned-- we were having a discussion, and someone mentioned the Janjaweed and what they were doing, kind of in passing. And I had never heard of the Janjaweed or the conflict in Darfur. So I went home, did some research, and pretty much from that point on became interested and deeply invested in working for peace in Sudan. It was kind of an interesting time for me at least because I’d read about Rwanda and the movements in South Africa, but this was really something-- this was a conflict that was unfolding right before my eyes.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: And when you got to George Washington, you started working with a lot of other students on a range of things for Darfur, from what I understand. Can you talk about some of the things that you and other student activists were doing at GW?
ZACH HINDIN: Yes, well, when I got here, there was already a really strong divestment campaign to get the University and just people in general to divest money from those companies that contributed to businesses in the public sector in Sudan. Personally, I worked with another student and published a paper in a policy journal about some policy recommendations for Sudan, but the STAND chapter on campus here was also highly involved in raising money for several public schools in primary education in Sudan. Banaa really kind of hit the ground running somewhere around fall of 2006.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: And can you tell us what is Banaa? And what is the project you worked on that brought you in touch with Makwei?
ZACH HINDIN: Well, I mean the answer to the second question is Banaa. Banaa is an Arabic word, and it means “to build or to found or to create,” and basically what our organization does is work to match survivors of the human rights crisis in Sudan with scholarship opportunities in the United States. Over the last two years, we’ve built a network of Sudanese diaspora groups, NGOs, universities, and professionals across the field who have some kind of stake in working for peace in Sudan. So we’ve used this network basically to maintain a database of students in Sudan who are qualified to further their education at universities in America but don’t necessarily have the resources to do so. And so we use our contacts and basically try and leverage our resources here in the States to make those opportunities a reality.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: And why does Banaa choose to focus on helping promising Sudanese students get an education? Obviously, there are lots of other projects that you have worked on, but why did you feel that this one was very important?
ZACH HINDIN: Well, personally, I mean like I said earlier, this was something that deeply resonated with me. This wasn’t just something out of a history book. I mean this was just happening in real-time, something that I was tracking since I was, what, 15, 16 years old in the papers, and it was happening. Particularly, though, Banaa really represents a strategic initiative, and the precedent that Sudan poses for a program like Banaa to build peace is pretty unique, and in that sense, profound.
Banaa’s vision, basically, is to build a generation of empowered peace builders, and that’s not something that’s Sudan-specific. However, taking a place like Sudan, where there’s so little infrastructure for civil society, for state governance, for basic infrastructure, for peace building and development, taking a place like that from zero to 60 really isn’t a traditional way to go about it. And so Banaa, I think, certainly has a lot to maybe prove, a lot of potential to grow in that environment. And, of course, if it’s successful in Sudan, there’s no reason why the model can’t be scaled and replicated to other conflict areas, as well.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: So how did you get word out to students in Sudan, students like Makwei, that there were scholarship opportunities for them?
ZACH HINDIN: Well, we tried a lot of different things. I mean none of us had ever personally traveled to Sudan, so this was, in that sense, kind of a shot in the dark. But, basically, over the last two years, we’ve maintained a number of contacts, professionals, who work in peace building and development, who travel back and forth between Sudan. These include folks who work for the Institute of Peace, ambassadors, folks in the development field or humanitarian relief, and they were able to disseminate applications and spread the word of mouth, basically. But a major help came in from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, where we got literally thousands of e-mail addresses of folks who were working in the development and peace building in Sudan. And we just basically sent them all applications, and from what we could tell when we corresponded with most of the people who applied to Banaa, it seems that most of them heard through word of mouth. Despite all our efforts, that seemed to be the best way to get the word out.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: And, Makwei, do you remember when you first heard about this opportunity?
MAKWEI MABIOR: Yes, I remember, because after finishing my high schooling in 2004 and because I didn’t have money, I stayed out of school for four years. So in 2007, almost the end of the year, in November, one of my teacher colleagues, with whom I was teaching in the high school came to me with the papers, the application paper, and there was an essay part. He came to me asking for assistance. We sat down, we discussed, we contributed, brainstorming By the end of that, I asked what he was writing on, and he told me that he sent in scholarship from America. After that, I told him that I would like to see the whole application form. He took me to his house and showed me everything. It is after that that I become interested. But I didn’t have time, so it took to me another two months. Suddenly in 2008 in January, I finally applied for this scholarship.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: And the scholarship is a full four years at George Washington University with your tuition and housing covered, right?
ZACH HINDIN: That’s correct.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: So, Makwei, you’ve been here in the U.S. for a few weeks now, just a few weeks, right?
MAKWEI MABIOR: Yes, for one-and-a-half months.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: How are you settling in?
MAKWEI MABIOR: Well, first it was a bit hard, but now, I’m a bit okay because most of the things that I didn’t know outside of the classroom, I’ve been helped a lot by the Banaa officials and some of the friends that I have come across at this school. So far, so good, but it was a bit hard in the first place. I had to miss classes. Sometimes I get confused about where the room is or where the building is because I had the map that I use to go around the campus. It was hard.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: Yes, and it’s only been a few weeks.
MAKWEI MABIOR: Right.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: You’ll probably be racing ahead of everyone soon.
MAKWEI MABIOR: I hope so.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: Well, we look forward to hearing more from you, and we’ll probably check in with you again to see how the year went. Zach, what are Banaa’s future plans? Are you going to expand this program?
ZACH HINDIN: Oh, absolutely. Yes, I mean we plan to bring over another five students to universities throughout the country. There are a number of colleges that have both expressed interest in reading and reviewing the applications that we’ll be sending out for the next fall semester, as well as several who have made palpable financial commitments to a Banaa program at their school. So for the next academic year, we plan to bring five students and then, hopefully, seven after that. And then I mean it’s all reliant on funding and whether or not universities will pick this up, but we hope to expand from there on into the future.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: Well, it’s a really amazing and inspiring story to hear about students so far apart being able to come together around the possibility of building a stronger future. Thank you both very much for taking the time to speak with me.
ZACH HINDIN: Thank you so much for having us.
MAKWEI MABIOR: Thank you.
NARRATOR: You have been listening to Voices on Genocide Prevention, from United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. To learn more about preventing genocide, join us online at www.ushmm.org/conscience. There you’ll also find the Voices on Genocide Prevention weblog.
