My name is James Mangok Wol and I am 23 years old. I live in Greenfield, New Hampshire, where I work with disabled youth and study social work at a local university. When the Sudanese civil war broke out in 1983 I was 5 years old. I left my home country in 1987.

My family is of the Dinka ethnic group and lived as cattle herders located at the border between north and south in a province named Mading Aweil in the Dinka language. In this rural area we and other families kept animals including goats, sheep, camel, chicken, and donkeys. Our province was raided by the Khartoum government when the war broke out in 1983. We moved away from the border and established our new home about fifty miles away from the border.

On a summer morning at 4AM before our cattle were released from the cattle camp, my community was attacked by Arab soldiers who arrived with fourteen tanks and fifty horses. These soldiers are commonly know as the janjawid or coheres, who are really paid thugs rather than trained militia. Through villages and towns they attack all that is in their path, killing men and raping women. On that day morning, I awakened to the sound of machine guns and screams. I saw the janjawid burning villages and abducting the women and young girls to be their slaves. I remember what happened that day: the whole villages were on fire, smoke was everywhere, and people were scattering to all directions.

Although I was only five years old, I ran for my own safety for two days. I was without my parents, and I had no food or water. So I drank street water with blood of the dead. On the third day, I came to a big river and tried to across to another side, but I could not make it because I was young and I did not know how to swim. After few minutes, another man came running for his own safety. He asked me, "What are you doing? Where are you going? Where are your parents?" I did answer him by crying.

He told me that he would bring me to my parents. We crossed the river together, and he gave me food and water and helped me to survive. He told me his name was Machardit. We walked for three months until we found ourselves in Ethiopia at Dimma refugee camp. It was at this place in 1988 that I joined a group of other Sudanese boys and became one of the "lost boys of Sudan." We are called this because we are separated from our families by war, and truly since I left my home country in 1987, I have not seen my family and only recently made contact with a few survivors. Most of the other lost boys died in their struggle to escape. Some were eaten by wild animals such as hyena, lions, and tigers and others died without food and water.

We stayed in Ethiopia from 1988 until 1991 when the new government came on power in Ethiopia and told the Sudanese refugees to leave. We left Ethiopia and returned to the Sudan border, but the soldiers attacked us there so we fled to Kenya. An earlier group of refugees arrived in Kenya in 1992, but I went with a later group in 1995.

Thankfully, the U.S. government and human rights groups helped me and other lost boys and girls to come to America to find safety and to receive an education. I came to America on January 30, 2001.

James Mangok Wol (4 The World Spokesperson and Youth Coordinator) is an amazing individual with a passionate dream to help the Sudanese children by providing them with vital education and resources to develop life skills. It is evident that the friendships of inspiring mentors and kind caring individuals as well as opportunities provided to James by human rights groups have enabled him to passionately envision and be the change so desperately needed by so many children in Sudan.