|
By Anthony Warren. Used with the permission of the "Northside Sun".
There are few people who understand the ravages of war like Bul Mabil.
Mabil, who has been named a 2014 Rotary Peace Fellow, will spend a year and three months in Great Britain studyihg peace and conflict resolution.
He already understands war. Mabil, at five, fled his village in South Sudan following the outbreak of civil conflict.
He and other boys walked to Ethopia, where they were again uprooted in 1990 when civil war broke out in that country.
Mabil, who now lives in Northeast Jackson with his wife Apajok and their two children, wants to use what he learns as a Peace Fellow to serve people who have experienced the horrors that he experienced as a young man.
|
"I hope to one day work for the U.N. (United Nations), USAID (the U.S. Agency for International Development) or the State Department, or an international organization that will allow me to contribute to the cause of peace," he said.
After fleeing Ethiopia, Mabil, 31, ended up in the Kakuma Refugee Camp in North Kenya. He finished his primary education in one of the camp's U.N.-sponsored schools, and made it to the second year of high school, when he was brought to the United States.
Life in the camp was hard. "It wasn't a fun place to be. Many of us were without parents. There were a lot of boys who were led by teenagers. Because of the situation, we had to mature to the level where we could take care of each other," he said.
The U.N. provided the boys with materials to build their huts, but they didn't provide protection from the local population. "Some of the local people would come and steal, and shoot at you," he said.
|
Mabil was the equivalent of a high school senior when he "grudgingly" came to the United States. He explained why he grudgingly" came to the states in his fellowship application. "I was not so sure of the life I was going to have. I opted to come to the U.S. because of the conviction that neither the refugee camp nor Sudan was going to offer me much of the future I was anticipating," he wrote. "I decided to leave ... to get out of the conditions in Kakuma where insecurity was commonplace."
He also didn't want to be conscripted to fight in the Sudanese conflict like his brother had been in 1995. Mabil came to the states through a resettlement program sponsored by the U.N. and U.S. Department of State in 2000. From there, he was placed with Catholic Charities' Unaccompanied Minor Program in Jackson. He was 17 at the time.
In all, about 80 boys were brought to Jackson. Today, a large group of Sudanese natives attend St. Andrew's Episcopal Cathedral in downtown Jackson.
Mabil has been in Mississippi ever since, except for a short time when he moved to Jacksonville, Fla., for his education. Originally, he was expected to attend Jackson Public Schools, but the district wanted to put the boys in ninth grade. That's despite the fact that Mabil was really a high school senior.
He went to Jacksonville, where he could go to school and work. He wanted a job so he could send money back home to his family. At the time, his mother and three sisters were still living in South Sudan.
With the help of "Kathy Gray, the wife of Bishop Duncan Gray" and Catholic Charities, Mabil came back to Jackson and was recognized as a high school senior.
"Since I've come to this country, I've worked hard to support my family and those in need,' he said. "I was brought here to make a difference in my life and the lives of others."
Mabil still helps to support his family. He sends half of his salary home to help his mother, Martha, rent a house in Nairobi. She lives with her 11-year-old nephew, Jama, and her five grandchildren. His sister Rachel works in South Sudan to help support her children, and his sister Debora has been relocated to Australia. She is now working on the paperwork to have Martha relocated there as well. Mabil's oldest sister, Rebecca, passed away in 2004. And his brother William is still in the army.
"I communicate a lot with them. Any time my mother wants to talk to me," he said, adding that he has an international calling card to call overseas.
|
|
After high school, Mabil attended Millsaps College, where he earned his undergraduate degree in political science in May 2006. He worked through college, as a laboratory aide at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.
|
From 2006 to 2009, he worked as a case manager for Lutheran-Episcopal Services in Long Beach, Miss., and as a senior operations management analyst for the Mississippi State Department of Health in Jackson from 2009 to 2011. Since then, he's been a principal transit specialist for the Mississippi Department of Transportation, according to a copy of Mabil's resume.
Mabil graduated from Belhaven University with a master of public administration in 2013. North Jackson Rotary Club member Dick Dickerson was introduced to Mabillast summer, after asking a churchgoer if he knew of anyone interested in becoming a scholar. The churchgoer, Greg Miller, worked with the Sudanese community in Jackson. As it turned out, Dickerson, Miller, and Mabil, all attended the same church.
"I'd seen him, but I'd never met him," Dickerson said. Dickerson did know the story of the Lost Boys, and thought one of them would be a good match for the peace fellowship program.
"I was aware of the issues in South Sudan, and it dawned on me that (one of them) would be a good match. They could study, go somewhere and make a difference," he said.
To be nominated, individuals have to be endorsed by a local Rotary Club, and then they have to go through an interview with a district selection committee. From there, nominees from each district are submitted to The Rotary Foundation, Dickerson said.
Mabil began the application process last June, and was notified in November than he had been one of the 50 applicants accepted. He was in the middle of an MOOT staff meeting when Dickerson contacted him with the good news.
"It is very exciting to be accepted in a worldwide competition," Mabil said.
Mabil and his family will travel to England in August, and he will begin classes at the University of Bradford in September. His family is arriving a month early so they can find a house and his children can be enrolled in school.
Regardless of what happens, he will always have the war in Sudan, and his experiences in Ethiopia and Kenya on the back of his mind .. You remember what you left behind," he said. 'And it gives you the courage to succeed and make a difference."
|
|
|
|