It’s Thursday, and time for our Global Activism series. Each Thursday we hear about an individual who’s decided to work to make the world a better place.

Forty-thousand boys were driven from their families and homes in Sudan during the civil war in the 1980s and 1990s. Most, under eight years old at the time,  became known as “The Lost Boys of Sudan.”

Jok Kuol Wel is a Lost Boy living in Chicago.  He was 5 years old when he and his brother fled their home region of Bor in southern Sudan.  They walked hundreds of miles and swam across rivers to safety in  Ethiopia, then Kenya.  They came to the United States in 1998 as refugees. After living in Chicago for several years, Jok decided he needed to support his community back in Sudan.  So he co-founded Help Sudan, an organization focused on improving the education opportunities in the Bor region. Jok just returned from four months in Sudan.  Since we last talked with Jok, Help Sudan has created a fresh water well and started building a school.

Jok told Jerome more about his life as a Lost Boy.