Salva Dut Meets His Family Again Salva Dut Family
In 2003, Salva Dut, a refugee from Sudan living in Rochester, had an thought.
He would raise money; he would become dorsum to his village in the eastward African country; he would dig a well; he would bring water.
The idea became a reality beyond his grandest intentions. The organisation he created has at present dug 400 wells. And his story was the subject area of a bestselling volume for immature adults by Brighton author Linda Sue Park. Information technology has but been followed by her companion-volume sequel for young children.
Dut'due south story is about persistence and danger and survival. It'southward also about something almost of u.s. take for granted: water.
Water is deficient in Sudan, frequently locked away undercover. Wells are expensive to dig. Consequently, people turn to unsafe ground h2o, or they walk for miles to get safe water.
Dut reasoned that if the people of his village had clean water they would not confront persistent illness, even death. Beyond that, they would no longer accept the backbreaking task of fetching water.
Thus, it was that Dut started talking to groups here about his plan to dig a well in Sudan. He worried he didn't have the words, the vocalism to carry it off. But he had the story, a true story, his story. He could tell about how he and thousands of the other "Lost Boys of Sudan" had wandered their war-torn land in the 1980s and into the 1990s. He could tell about the deaths he had seen, the losses he suffered.
He told about x lonely years in a refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia and his confusing get-go years in Rochester — the baffling language, the weather. Taken in by a family, supported by St. Paul'due south Episcopal Church building, he worked, went to college, started a life, returning once to Sudan in 2001 to visit his ill father, a parent he hadn't seen for years.
Subsequently he raised plenty money to dig a single well in Sudan, Dut went dorsum over again, finishing the starting time well in 2005. It was never piece of cake. The land was in abiding turmoil. A period of peace came with the cosmos of S Sudan in 2011, but violence kept breaking out. Nevertheless, Dut kept digging wells. He was where he had to be.
"Dwelling house is home," Dut said Monday while visiting Rochester. 'Home is where our ancestors are. And going with a mission, going to help, is more meaningful.'
He lives in Kampala, Uganda, with his wife and children, having settled there in 2010, and he is oft across the border in S Sudan supervising the digging of wells. But H2o for South Sudan remains based in Rochester, and i of his three children lives here.
Dut stresses that the success of his organization is a upshot of the generosity of churches, including St. Paul's and Downtown United Presbyterian in Rochester, foundations, and thousands of people, many of them schoolchildren. Credit, as well, goes to Park, the accolade-winning author of books for young readers, who told Dut'due south story in the best-selling "A Long Walk to Water," published in 2010.
Park is married to Ben Dobbin, a retired Associated Printing announcer. A story Dobbin wrote about Dut gained national circulation in 2004. Dobbin would eventually travel twice to Africa to witness firsthand and write almost Dut'south mission.
Through Dobbin, Park and Dut got to know each other, and she decided to tell his story, every bit she was struck by his courage and by his ability to get through harrowing circumstances past focusing on the immediate obstacle, by taking 1 stride at a time. "And Salva made us realize that if you don't have h2o, there is zilch else y'all can do," Park said, as she met with Dut on Monday.
"A Long Walk to Water" wasn't an firsthand striking. Merely after it fabricated information technology onto the recommended reading listing for junior high schools, sales picked up, moving into the millions. In addition, schools started raising money for Water for South Sudan.
Park hopes to reach a younger audition with the recently published "Nya'south Long Walk, A Step at a Time", her picture book for children with illustrations by Brian Pinkney that features Nya from "A Long Walk" and tells of her search for water and of her conclusion to help her ill sis Akeer.
Spoiler alarm: Dut, who has become a hero to the young people who read Park's kickoff volume, appears in the sequel, doing what he has said he will continue doing, earthworks a well. He returns to Africa at the end of October and begins excavation in December, standing his mission of bringing hope and health to villages, one step at a time.
Catch the livestream
Salva Dut and Linda Sue Park participated in a livestream presentation at noon on Wednesday, Oct. two, from Monroe Community Higher.
The session is organized by the schoolhouse's Holocaust, Genocide and Man Rights Project.
On Remarkable Rochester
Retired Senior Editor Jim Memmott reflects on what makes Rochester distinctively Rochester, its history, its habits, its people. Since 2010, he has also been compiling a listing of Remarkable Rochesterians. Contact him at: (585) 278-8012 or JMEMMOTT@DemocratandChronicle.com or Remarkable Rochester, Box 274, Geneseo, NY 14454.
Remarkable Rochesterians
Salva Dut and Linda Sue Park are already on this cavalcade'due south listing of Remarkable Rochesterians. Let's add this award-winning actress to the list that can be establish at rochester.nydatabases.com.
Donna Lynne Champlin (1971- ): A graduate of Greece Athena High Schoolhouse and Carnegie Mellon High Schoolhouse, the Rochester native is best known for the recurring role of Paula Proctor on television'due south "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend." She has appeared in numerous Broadway and off-Broadway productions, including "By Jeeves," "Sweeney Todd" and "The Night at the Elevation of the Stairs," for which was awarded an Obie. On television, she has also appeared in "The Good Married woman" and "Police & Order."
Source: https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/local/2019/10/02/former-lost-boy-maintains-his-mission-create-safe-water-supplies-sudan/3839072002/
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