Kathleen Lee thanks community for their support.
As a rising senior at HMHS, I’m starting to look back at my three years of high school and realizing that the highlight of my three years is when my class had the opportunity to skype with Garang Buk Buk, victim of the Sudanese civil war and now living in independent South Sudan. It was in Kim Dickstein’s sophomore English class that my fellow classmates and I had the chance to apply what we read and learned about through Ishmael Beah’s, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Child Soldier, to reality.
Almost every day there is some news article about the struggles and difficulties of others beyond our community, but their suffering sadly never reached me as much as Garang’s story since I personally had the opportunity to skype with him. Garang Buk Buk was subjected to a violent environment and the cruelty of humanity when he watched his own uncles burn to ashes by power-hungry individuals. Instead of letting his hardships tear him down, he used his experiences and connection with others who are struggling to aid them. He is now hoping to be a student at the prestigious Emory University for a master’s degree in development practice to help rebuild a better South Sudan. Unfortunately, the only roadblock left is funds.
So in the past few weeks HMHS students, including myself, along with Kim Dickstein have been canvassing around town. The support we have been receiving from newspapers, Haddonfield locals, and especially the business district in Haddonfield has been overwhelming. We want to thank everyone who has given their well wishes and who have supported us. This campaign is not too distant from us everyday people. Garang’s story is as human as it gets and our support as fundamental.
