My name is Amal Solomon.

I was born in 1990 in southern Sudan in a town called Kadugli. My father's name is Solomon and my Mother's name is Bethelm. My father has 2 daughters and 7 sons. Trouble happened when the Arabs were fighting with the Nubians; my people in my Country were being shot to death and even sometimes you may find that 100 people are killed within a single day. So the war was still continuing until this forced the UN to come to Southern Sudan but the problem was not able to be solved. Parents and children were still being killed at that time.

Furthermore, there was also this organization which came in and offered people to register to go to Kenya for protection with the UNHCR. By that time my father went and registered us as refugees and we were then transported to Kenya to a camp called Kakuma Refugee Camp and this is were I grew up to the level that am in now. I started my class 2 (2nd grade) in the camp and in the year 2003 I received a scholarship which was JRS means Jesuit Refugee Service. They sponsored me from class 3 to 7--after which time, by bad luck, I had to abandon this scholarship and return into Sudan because my uncle's wife had died and therefore it was my duty to take care of his children. It all happened quickly; I could not even inform anyone at Kakuma about it. I left and stayed there for 2 months until I was able to return to Kakuma.

Then the worst thing happened in my life. When I came back from Sudan I found that my Mum was in the Hospital delivery but unfortunately the baby was not in a position of coming out. So what was to be done? The doctors operated to remove the baby. But in process of her operation my Mum immediately died; the baby, however, was alive and was put under the care of the hospital. Soon the baby also passed away and with all that had happened so suddenly, I was really in a very bad mood for almost a month, not even able to speak to anybody. But it helped me that I was a Christian, so I kept on reading the Bible all the time. One day a pastor who was our neighbor came to me and advised me about many things concerning life and how things had changed for me. And also many of my friends advised me not to think of anything because all of us are going in the same way as death.

So I decided to enroll again into a nearby school; this one was 5 miles from our home. By that time I was now in class 8. Every day, when the lessons were on in the class I was always thinking of my Mum. Even when we were given exams by our teacher I always scored at the bottom of the worst students. So it happened on one day that my English teacher called me in his office and encouraged me to stop thinking while in the class. He narrated to me a story in a novel, Think Big. He loaned me the book so that I could read it by myself. I kept on reading the book every weekend and from there my performance began improving. Soon it was our time to sit for our final exams (KCPE: Kenya Certificate of Primary Education). By a miracle I achieved high marks; in fact, I was the highest scoring girl in my school. And I really thank my English Teacher because he is the one who changed my life in some of the areas that I was weak and through thinking big and that is my best book I have ever read.

Since that day I believe that God has a purpose for my life and I know God is still going to do very great wonders in my life. The best thing was when I met New Scholars in the refugee camp. I really thank them for trusting me with a secondary education scholarship. Even when I was doing my KCPE, I dared not think of joining any secondary school because we had no money for school fees. New Scholars changed all that. I really appreciate them because they are preparing me to be a leader of my community. As their student I really don’t have anything that I can give them other than just praying for them so that they may continue with their work in helping the needy people and maybe one day, one time, they will get their reward.

My main dream is to educate my community about HIV/AIDS because it is a killer disease which destroys the lives of too many people. For me to reach this dream I need to be serious in my work that I'm doing. My community members are suffering from many problems and they need me to address some of the problems and work for solutions. Through education I can make it. If others can make it by becoming the presidents of nations, so why not me, too?

[Note: Mercy Beyond Borders partners with New Scholars to pay the high school scholarships for its female Sudanese awardees.]

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