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Event Committee |
| Performances
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David
(right) and friends singing in
Dinka and English
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Traditional African Music and Dance
Masisi
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Lost Girls from Michigan
joined the celebration
Left to right:
Yar, Aluel, Adeng, and Adeng
Although
the vast majority of resettled Sudanese refugees are
young men, there are 89 young women. Their experience
was explained to Refugees International by a young “lost
girl” who will soon turn 18: “We girls were not put
into groups like the boys. If we had been put into groups,
we might have been attacked. We are now in the community,
and no one knows where we are.” The girls had the same
traumatic experiences as the boys, but culturally could
not be grouped to live by themselves. Like the boys,
these girls had also lost their parents, siblings, and
homes. Members of their own communities, and most often
of the same clan, took them into their households.
|
Manute Bol with some of
the day's guests |
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Keynote
Speakers
Manute
Bol
Former
NBA Player
Kenneth
Elisapana
SPLM/A
Chapter in Illinois
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Speakers
Malual Awak
Master of Ceremony
|
Emmanuel Bol Kuanyin
President of Sudanese Community
|
Anghesom Atsbaha
Assistant Professor
Truman College |
Brenda Weddington
Dean of Student Services
Truman College |
Arnold Romeo
City of Chicago Commision of Human Relations
&
Director, Advisory Council on African Affairs
|
Mike Dubiel
President, Chicago Association for the Lost
Boys of Sudan |
Shana Will
Refugee & Immigrant Community Services
Director, Heartland Human Care Services |
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Prayers
John
Elnakal
Evangelical Free Church, Wheaton
|
Fr. Ned Prevost
Christ Church Winnetka |
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