Deng Adut’s story starts off about as bleak as any story could.
It gets better—much better.
And it is far from over.
Deng Adut was forced to fight as a soldier in Sudan at the age of 7. He was impressed into the Sudan People’s Liberation Army and handed a gun.
He was fighting in Sudan’s civil war, but he didn’t care about politics.
He was too young to understand what he was doing; war was just a game to him.
“I hate that child and I hate every single person that was involved in making that child or depriving that child,” Adut said, referring to his younger self.
As he grew older he realized that there might be alternatives to his daily routine of fighting for no cause, witnessing torture and murder, feeling only fear and anger and hate.
When he was 12, half-brother John Mac Acuek helped smuggle him out of Sudan.
Adut spent 18 months in U.N. refugee camps in Kenya.
At age 14 he arrived in Australia, penniless and unable to speak the language.
“It’s confusing, confusing because everything is chaos,” Adut said of the transition for civil war soldier to civilized student. “You have to adjust to live like a normal human being. You have to learn a way of life, not a way of war.”
Adut taught himself enough English to enter school. He kept learning, eventually earning his high school certificate. He got a scholarship to study law at Western Sydney University and entered college.
Eventually he got a Bachelor of Law degree.
Now 19 years later, he is a lawyer and refugee advocate. He started a law firm, which has several offices around Sydney.
He was even named “New South Wales’ Australian of the Year.”
His road was hard, but he worked hard.
The road was also painful.
In 2014, the year he graduated, his half-brother, John Mac Acuek—the man who had smuggled him out of Sudan—returned to Sudan as part of an aid mission.
Acuek was killed in Sudan.
Adut found the perfect way to honor his half-brother: Adut started the John Mac Foundation, to provide aid and encouragement to empower refugees.
Adut appreciates the help he got.
“It is not easy to convert a former child soldier, a refugee, uneducated, to convert them to become Australian quickly—it takes years,” Adut said. “I’ve been here for nearly 19 years now, so I would say Australia’s done a pretty good job for me.”
As World Refugee Day approaches, Adut has to think of his own journey and the help he received.
He also thinks about refugees.
There are more people leaving or driven from their homes now than at any time since World War II.
Adut started a foundation to give refugees the kind of help he got.
He knows that with just a little help—and effort—a refugee can rise high.
He wants every refugee to have that knowledge.
He wants every refugee to have that chance.
