John Dau, one of the “Lost Boys of Sudan,” will give a lecture titled “Between Two Worlds” on Wednesday, Feb. 3, at 7:30 p.m., in the Chapel. The lecture is free and open to the public.
Born in war-torn Sudan, Dau is one of 27,000 “Lost Boys of Sudan,” driven from their villages when the northern Arab government attacked the ethnic minority population of South Sudan in 1987. For the next five years, Dau led groups of displaced boys across Sudan for hundreds of miles facing starvation, disease and violence.
While living in a Kenyan refugee camp from 1992-2001, Dau attended school for the first time at the age of 17 and earned a prestigious Kenyan Certificate for Secondary Education. In 2001, he was selected to immigrate to the United States and settled in Syracuse, N.Y. Dau earned an associate’s degree and then a bachelor’s degree at Syracuse University.
Dau is currently president of both the John Dau Foundation and the South Sudan Institute. He is part of many efforts to bring hope and peace to the people of South Sudan, founding four nonprofits with help from volunteers. Dau raised over $3 million to build and run Duk Lost Boys Clinic in his home village of Duk Payuel.
As a human rights activist for the people of South Sudan, he has received many prestigious awards, including National Geographic Emerging Explorers Award and he was a Volvo for Life finalist in the Quality of Life category, which carried a financial contribution from Volvo to the John Dau Foundation.
