Nhial Deng is a 23-year-old South Sudanese refugee, writer, youth advocate, community activist and organizer. He spent 11 years in the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya and now attends college in Canada. Nhial was a panelist for a session on good practices in youth engagement at the Transforming Education Summit during the UN General Assembly in New York. Here is the story of his journey to the Summit.
Growing up in the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, I knew that education was the only tool I could use to make my dream of becoming a journalist come true. But it wasn't long before I realized the many barriers ahead of me and the very limited educational opportunities in the refugee camp, home to more than 230,000 refugees and asylum seekers from more than 10 different countries.
My father is a storyteller, and it is from his storytelling that I grew my passion for stories. Every day after school, I would sit next to him as he narrated stories about his childhood and the war in South Sudan. In the evening, men from our neighbourhood would join him to listen to Naath FM and BBC. This was the only way they could keep up with the events in South Sudan. When was the war going to end? When would it be safe to go back home? I listened closely as they analyzed the news and discussed world affairs. My father’s radio introduced me to the world outside my village. I was fascinated by the BBC news anchors, and I started imitating them and dreaming of becoming a journalist, to one day tell stories of my community on BBC.
This was in Ethiopia, where my father settled after fleeing the first Sudanese civil war and where I was born. In 2010, our village in Ethiopia was attacked by armed militia and I fled to the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, where I spent the next 11 years. I arrived in Kakuma frustrated, lost, and traumatized but my life took a turn once I started school again. The school was a safe place where I found hope, courage, and solace - I started dreaming about a glowing future again.
I spent most of my time after school listening to the stories of my classmates, who were also refugees like me. Through their stories, I realized that most were still traumatized by the brutal images of violence they witnessed while fleeing their home country. In 2017, I founded the Refugee Youth Peace Ambassadors, a refugee-led, youth-led initiative to create a safe space for young people in the camp to heal from their trauma, play together, promote peace among different communities, and develop innovative solutions for challenges faced by our communities. By the end of 2021, we reached more than 6,000 young people in Kakuma through peacebuilding programming, mentorship sessions, social entrepreneurship workshops, community peace dialogues, and game and sports activities.
I also started a journalism club at my high school and social media channels to tell stories of my community, which until then were mostly told through the eyes of external observers.
Through my community work with the Refugee Youth Peace Ambassadors, I saw the different barriers that women and girls face in the refugee camp. So we started applying an intersectional and gender lens to our programming. Recently, we set up SheLeads Kakuma to streamline our gender equity work.
Today, I am fortunate enough to attend conferences and sit on a few advisory boards where I advocate for refugee education, including Canada’s Refugee Education Council and UNHCR’s Global Taskforce for Higher Education. I have appeared for interviews on CNN, BBC, CNBC, and Al Jazeera and my writing has been published by both CNN and Al Jazeera.
Education is the key to a just world and the backbone of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Yet, education is not a key priority for world leaders, despite the current global education crisis. The Transforming Education Summit was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for world leaders to show real leadership and commitment to transforming education for all. But education cannot be transformed unless commitments and promises made by world leaders at the summit are followed by real actions and world leaders do not go back to business-as-usual. There are three big asks I brought to the Summit, and my hope is that world leaders will now take action on them:
1. Financial investment in education in humanitarian and emergencies settings:
Today, 222 million crisis-affected children are in urgent need of education support. And yet, less than 3% of humanitarian funding is allocated to education. World leaders, the private sector, and other stakeholders must commit sufficient funding for transforming education in emergencies. Without this, millions of children will continue to be deprived of the opportunity to learn.
2. Meaningful youth engagement:
Transforming education must be fully driven by young people. We cannot envision a better future without involving the youth. However, we must acknowledge that youth are not a homogenous group and transforming education must include young people in all their diversities including young refugees, young women and girls, Indigenous youth, LGBTQIA youth, young migrants, and other marginalized youth groups. The Youth Declaration launched at the Summit lays out a set of recommendations that were shared with UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
3. Gender equality - gender transformative education:
We cannot talk about education without talking about gender equality. Globally, women and girls are disproportionally impacted by the education crisis. We are currently seeing a rollback on women’s and girls’ rights around the world. Gender-transformative education must be at the centre of transforming education.
