What can a boy make out of nothing? The story of Deng Thiak Adut is a look inside the modern man’s soul.
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“To be the first person to graduate with a law degree in my family, you can’t call it a privilege. You don’t give it a name.”
These are the words of Deng Thiak Adut, a recent graduate of West Sydney University (WSU), who grew up in Sudan as an ordinary child. As Uoworthy.com contributor Maz Ali describes, however, Adut’s journey to get to a courtroom was “neither expected nor likely.” It’s transcendent.
Adult was forced to fight in war-torn Sudan at the age of six. By the time he was 12, he had been shot in the back during battle alongside an army of boys his age. Adut was not expected to survive, but the battle he and his peers fought–known as The Second Sudanese Civil War–left more than just scars.
The boys trudged through miles of desolate land for a reported 33 days until they reached Ethiopia. There, a still-wounded Adut was reunited with his brother, who took a risk by smuggling himself and Adut into Kenya, in an attempt to escape death. The two found temporary refuge in The United Nations, and were eventually taken in by an Australian family.
Adut’s brother–who isn’t named in this article–reportedly stayed behind with the family while he recovered from his injuries and began to educate himself. He taught himself how to read, write, speak in native tongue and properly treat his wounds with what was around him. He planned to get a formal education in Australia or somewhere nearby, but quickly learned that he wasn’t old enough at 13. So, he taught himself how to speak English–and continued to learn as he walked from gas station to gas station, talking with locals.
Adut enrolled in law school in 2005, and graduated from WSU in 2015. Upworthy.com reported that he reflected on his journey the night before graduation and cried until he physically couldn’t anymore.
“Studying [for a] law degree was hard. It was even harder because of my background,” he said. “Kids. Going to war. You know they’re not going to come back because they’re going to put in everything they have. We were slaughtered,” Adut added in an interview with Models of Achievement.
Today, Adut is regarded as one of the only–if not the only Sudanese lawyer in Western Sydney–and is celebrated for his work supporting Sudanese refugees both in and out of court.
One may ask, “Why talk about a man who’s a million miles away?” “Why care about his struggles?”
The answer is simple: Humanity.
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Photo Credit: Beth Cortez-Neavel/Flickr