From Army Camp to Refugee Camp to Campus to City Engineer | Daniel Mach | TEDxUManitoba

Good

evening, today

I

don't have a very interesting idea or innovation,

but

I have a story of inspiration.

My

journey

from

an army camp

to

a refugee camp to a university campus.

Some

of you here may think that going to school is really hard.

Well,

try herding goats in a hot summer, barefoot,

with

old thorns piercing through your little feet.

That

was me growing up in a small village of Makwachi

in

South Sudan.

We

did not have electricity,

we

did not have TVs, obviously,

we

didn't have electronics,

but

life was beautiful.

Children

would dance,

sing, I

was a fairly okay singer,

I

still sing my childhood song

to

this day.

Although

we didn't have access to modern education,

my

father thought

I

could be a good blacksmith.

So

he approached a famous blacksmith

in

our village

to

mentor me,

and

I was excited.

Young

boys were taught how to hunt animals,

how

to identify edible wild fruits,

how

to dodge spears.

Not

knowing

the

village fighting will no longer be fought with

spears, but

guns.

My

aspiration

and

excitement

would

be shortly,

when

I woke up one morning

to

the sound of guns. Wailing of children and women,

smoke

from burning houses filled their hair.

Usually

in my village,

when

kids see

a

burning house,

they

will run toward the place

to

be the first to find out what happened,

and

be the first person to report to their family, especially the elderly one.

But

this time was different.

It

was different because

people

were shouting, meeting

the

Arab militias.

Others

were

crying. Local

language meaning

the

Nuer rebels.

I

wasn't going to wait around to find out who they were.

Waiting

for my mother who was trying to bundle up my little brother was such a pain.

So

I ditched her.

I

ran.

I

ran away.

I

ran toward the poorest that everyone was running to.

It

would be a long day

of

frantically racing toward safety.

And

uncontrollably crying my lung out. Calling my mama.

The

things were getting real.

I

mean real ugly.

A

crying child was not welcome into the hiding bushes.

People

would tell me, keep going

or

we will kill you

if

you had led

the

enemy

to

our direction.

It

would be weeks

before

the SPLA rebels

came

to the rescue

of

a completely burned

village. All

the cattle were taken.

All

the food.

The

village had to be deserted

to

a displaced camp within Sudan. Some of

children

like myself who were not able to locate their parents

during

those

chaos were

round up

to

be looked after

by

the SPLA rebels.

We

were called the Red Army.

In

Arabic, locally known as Jej al-Amer.

These

are

a

bunch of children under the age of 12

that

are reserved as a backup army.

And

every year,

the

SPLA rebel officers

would

pick out

a

taller, seemingly stronger voice

to

join the active army

called

Jej al-Aswa.

The

Black Army.

That

was the Serving Army.

At

the time,

most

of us would stand on our toes to look taller

to

join the active army,

which

seemed to be well fed to us, unlike our Red Army that was

stabbing and

malnourished.

But

as time goes by,

I

begin to notice

that

most of the children

that

were recruited

into

the active army

did

not come back.

And

you could simply

assume

that they probably died in the combat.

I've

always been 12 for my age, and at the time,

I

would

be

turning 13 soon.

So

I begin

to be

cold in my stomach. I begin

to

fear that in the next election, I would

probably

be selected

into

the active army.

But

there was nowhere to escape to. Escaping was not an option. Children who tried to escape

with

someone

and

executed by fire squad

in

front of all the children,

that's

terrifying.

So

escaping was not an option

until

one evening

when

I was approached by one of my teachers.

He

was planning to escape to a neighboring country of Kenya,

and

he asked me if I could come with him.

At

first, I thought he was trying to trick me

and

get me killed,

but

he convinced me. He told me being killed by fire squad

was

a faster,

less

painful death.

than

the slow death in these camps.

In

a way, he was right,

and

I was convinced.

I

sort of trust him,

and

I knew him,

so

I agreed to take up with him.

We

escaped the terror of the SPLA rebels,

and

we settled in Kakuma

refugee

camp. Kakuma refugee camp is in Kenya, north-western part of Kenya. It's currently a home to over 160,000

refugees

from different war-torn countries.

I

was registered by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugee,

and refugee

camps are not exactly the same weapon I thought.

They

usually are,

or

they would be.

There

was a lot of insecurity. The local host community would rob people at night.

They

would take the little food you have in the house, and if you resist, they will kill you.

There

was a lot of other challenges,

like inadequate

medical care

and

little higher education.

I

was determined.

I

was determined to take advantage of the free,

little

education that was being offered by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugee, UNHCR.

And

I would spend the next 10 years preparing

for

World University Services of Canada scholarship,

the

only and most prestigious scholarship

that

combined

university

education

with

the resettlement.

That

was my only hope.

I

would sell part of my food

to

buy condiments like roico,

rico

beef, yeast, locally known as camira, onion, sugar,

at

a wholesale fries.

And

later in the evening after school, I would

retail

them.

I

would walk around the block calling out the item I have for sale.

This

business kind of hand me a mockery name, rico beef,

but

I humbly accept

it. It

was a way of life.

This

was how I was able to buy myself clothes and shoes for a school.

And

most importantly, kerosene

for

my lantern lamp that I used to study at night

to

make sure I get a good grade.

I

have the physical NBA player, right?

But

I gave up the sport

to

devote more time to my studies

because

I've set my mind on the WUS scholarship. Competing for a national exam in Kenya is one of the toughest challenges I have ever taken.

But

I was prepared

and

I did very well

in

the national examination.

I

came out

as

the top student

in

all the refugee second school.

In

2008,

I

was awarded

the

WUS scholarship

to

come to Canada

and

I was picked

by

the University of Manitoba local committee.

This

scholarship

is

set up

through

a levy

through

University of Manitoba Student Union where each undergraduate student contributes 50 cents toward the student refugee.

and

I would assume

that

some of you in the audience here

could

have contributed

that

50 cents toward my sponsorship.

And

I say thank you.

Thank

you all.

I

wasn't going to disappoint you.

I

enrolled in the engineering program at the University of Manitoba here

and

I took advantage of a co-op option.

I

got my first co-op placement with the city of Edmonton

and

later on took up another co-op option with the government of Nunavut. In 2014, fall,

I

came back

for

my last semester

and

I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering. In 2015,

I

went back to my home country of South Sudan that is still in Tamar.

I

went back to my home

village. It

wasn't the same place that

I

left. It was a forest

with

few houses of few determined people who didn't have anywhere

to

go.

It

was heartbreaking.

But

there was hope.

There

was hope in me. There was hope in some of my countrymen who have the opportunity to go to school

that

hopefully some days when fees return to South Sudan will be part of rebuilding the nation.

Given

my

education

experience and the passion to work on my new home-found city, I took up a position with the city of Winnipeg

and

I'm currently

a

city engineer designated

with

the Water and Ways Department Engineering Division.

I

could have starved to death

during

those days. I could have slept and never wake up like most of the children during those long journeys.

But

I did not.

Could

have been a victim of

mine,

hair bombardment,

but

I'm here.

There's

an African proverb

that

says, however long the night,

the

dawn will break.

I

never lost hope.

I

never gave up.

and

you should not give up either.

You

should give up with the fight.

When

I was a little boy, we used to sing a song.

It

said in my language, Aditpiocha guolo, kuchirao da guoloa.

What

that means

is

the intolerant,

the

impatient,

the

greedy

is

dead

and

our harvest is rife.

It

was a song

of

tolerance, a song of resilience

song

of patience.

Once

again,

I

would like to say

kudos

to you, all my sponsors

who

contribute that 50 cent

for

you have changed the life

of

a child soldier

to

a city engineer.

Thank

you.

very

much.

Make nå you