FORMER LOST BOY OF THE SUDAN, VALENTINO ACHAK DENG, VISITS WESTCHESTER COMMUNITY COLLEGE

Hundreds of students attended today’s Westchester Community College lecture by Valentino Achak Deng, one of the Lost Boys of Sudan profiled in Dave Eggers’s epic bestselling book, What Is The What. The college’s English Language Institute and Gateway Center were the dual sponsors of the March 3 lecture on the main campus in Valhalla.

The students who attended today, many of whom are in the college’s English as a Second Language classes, identified with the story of this new American citizen who overcame hardships as he fled his home country and sought a new life, and further education, here in the United States. .Our ESL students are taking classes here to improve their own lives. Classes for the ESL students in Westchester will soon be housed in The Gateway Center, a new $40 million structure on the college’s main campus. This new building, opening this summer, will offer considerable resources for international students, new citizens, and traditional students.

“This country has given me a blessing,” said Deng. “If I had not come to the United States, I would not have been able to bring smiles to my people,” he added. Deng has traveled the world to raise funds to help educate Sudanese children, notably through his Foundation’s successful effort to open a secondary school in his homeland.

The New York Times describes Deng’s life as a testament "to human resilience over tragedy and disaster." Born in the village of Marial Bai in Southern Sudan, Deng was forced to flee in the 1980s, at the age of seven, when civil war erupted. He spent his formative years in refugee camps.

Deng has toured the United States and Europe, telling his story and becoming an advocate for social justice and the universal right to education. With perspective and humor, he uses his extraordinary tale to illuminate the lives and the struggles of millions in Africa. With grace, his lectures describe the tragedies of his youth and his time in America, as he shares his hard-won triumphs such as the opening of the Marial Bai School in 2009.

What Is The What has been called “an extraordinary work of witness, and of art” and Deng, in person, shares his extraordinary story with compassion, hope, and integrity.

Deng’s calm, reserved, and soft spoken delivery belied his powerful message today. “The future of the Sudan will be a better future,” he told the audience today. “I am an American now and I have been successful in my effort to help mobilize friends and sympathizers to help those in the Sudan,” he said.

When a student asked him whether, after all his trials and tribulations, if he considered himself an optimist or a pessimist, his reply was simple and direct. “Despite what I have been through, I have strong faith in myself and in humanity,” he answered.

For further information on the presentation, please phone 914-606-6700 or participate in our discussion on Facebook.