For a refugee child who has seen terrible things, has lost everything, and is alone in this world, something as small as a notebook and a pencil can be the start of a journey out of poverty and despair. The start of knowledge that will light up that child, and one day help rebuild communities, teach others, change the world … as former refugee John Dau explains.

John Dau is one of Sudan’s “Lost Boys” – one of many children orphaned by war in their homeland in the 1980s. John was just 13 when he fled his village in 1987, with 23 other boys. Only four of them survived the horrors the group faced on their three-month journey on foot across the desert to Ethiopia: terrible thirst, hunger, exhaustion, and the constant threat of abduction and death. “Because water was scarce, I was eating mud,” he remembers. He saw friends kidnapped by soldiers – and attacked and eaten by hyenas.

John did reach Ethiopia – but it wasn’t until 1992, when he was 17, that he found relative safety in Kakuma camp in Kenya. “I was one of the first people to be taken to Kakuma,” he remembers. “It was a desert. There was nothing there, until the UN Refugee Agency came. They gave us clean water, distributed food and clothing, built houses and a health clinic. Later they built a hospital. They helped protect us from local people, who would otherwise break into our houses with guns and steal our food. The UN Refugee Agency worked very hard for us. They had a lot of guts.”

Donations unlock refugee children’s potential

Thanks to donations from people who care about refugees, being in Kakuma camp gave John an opportunity that he’d never thought he would have: to go to school. “It opened my eyes,” he says. “I was like a blind person. You can imagine yourself as a blind person, you can’t see anything and then someone comes and opens your eyes and you see the whole world.”

Without this opportunity, John would not be where he is now, at university, with plans to help build schools and hospitals, and help other “Lost Boys” train to be teachers and doctors back in Sudan. So many refugee children are hungry for that first opportunity given to John. But it all comes down to money.

You can help another child who is desperate to learn

Right now, in refugee camps around the world, there are millions of children living desperately impoverished and insecure lives. They ache so much to learn that they will make the most of every opportunity. “At Kakuma, we started our schooling under a tree,” explains John. “There were no buildings – the UN Refugee Agency was still working hard to get them – so each tree had a class. We’d go and sit under the tree in a circle and a teacher would stand inside the circle with the blackboard in one hand, and writing with the other hand. And we’d sit and write with our fingers in the dirt. We’d move all the way around the tree with the shade and then later, we’d go home, and with our reading mates we’d sit down and clear a place in front of us. And we’d talk to each other and do dictations and write our ABCs.”

TOP: © UNHCR / H.Caux