That is the story of two immensely proficient sons of Africa who every migrated to America and thrived. One you’ve heard of: Elon Musk. The opposite, Valentino Achak Deng, was a “misplaced boy” from Sudan who survived massacres, lions and crocodiles and moved to Atlanta as a refugee.
Musk and Deng have since gone in reverse instructions.
Born in South Africa, Musk has proved himself one of many nice tech entrepreneurs in historical past, with outstanding achievements in rockets, electrical automobiles, mind implants and satellite tv for pc web. But Musk has warned that “the elemental weak point of Western civilization is empathy,” and by demolishing america Company for Worldwide Growth he’s now destroying the lives of many impoverished youngsters on the continent the place he grew up.
Valentino, an previous good friend of mine, is the alternative, for his traumas have left him exuding empathy. I love Musk’s genius, however I want it had been leavened by Valentino’s selflessness.
So I got here right here to the distant city of Aweil in South Sudan to see what could be realized from Valentino. Possibly, simply possibly, Musk will learn this and admire that the measure of a person is much less his web price than his web humanity.
Valentino’s odyssey started when he was 7 and a Sudanese militia raided his village, forcing him to flee for his life. Shedding all contact along with his household, surviving by consuming leaves and animal carcasses, he spent 5 years dodging bullets and land mines. Finally, he reached a Kenyan refugee camp, the place he says he made a pact with God: When you let me get to America, I’ll use these connections to assist my nation.
In 2001, he arrived in Atlanta. The author Dave Eggers wrote a best-selling e-book about Valentino, “What Is the What,” and Valentino and Eggers used the royalties to start out a college in what in 2011 grew to become the nation of South Sudan.
Then every part went fallacious. Civil battle erupted. A insurgent military drew close to the college, and Valentino apprehensive that his college students could be kidnapped. When President Barack Obama honored Valentino on the White Home, highly effective folks in South Sudan grew jealous, main goons to assault him and loot his college. He obtained loss of life threats and his automobile was shot at, however he refused to run: What Valentino shares with Musk is tenacity.
Valentino moved his college to a safer location within the bigger metropolis of Aweil, and now his Cornerstones Imaginative and prescient Academy has 2,200 college students from across the nation, chosen by aggressive examination. He’s proud that ladies outnumber boys there.
Many faculties across the nation stopped functioning through the civil battle. Public college academics haven’t been paid their salaries for the final yr, in order that they aren’t inclined to show. Twice as many “faculties” function exterior beneath bushes as in everlasting buildings. Greater than 70 % of South Sudanese youngsters don’t attend college.
All this has made Valentino all of the extra decided to persist, for he argues that training is one of the simplest ways to beat the tribalism, corruption and AK-47 tradition which have so broken his nation.
“I can’t let these households down,” he informed me, and he desires to place his personal success to a better goal. “I got here out of a grave to make a distinction.”
Cornerstones Academy is the alternative of posh. Courses generally have greater than 100 college students, and a few school rooms have dust flooring. College students lack desks and adequate books. There is no such thing as a common electrical energy or working water. A donor from Seattle, supporting the college via Valentino’s VAD Basis, is paying for a properly that may quickly present pure water for the primary time.
The academy affords laptop courses, but it surely can’t afford web for the scholars. (Valentino desires of the Starlink web entry pioneered by Musk.) A trainer goes on-line via a cell community and initiatives his laptop display onto the wall as college students watch. “We present the scholars what they will do sooner or later,” Valentino mentioned.
And these college students! They’re inspiring.
Daniella Adut Deng, 20, is an orphan who was raised by an aunt who pressured her to drop out of college within the fourth grade. Daniella secretly tried to maintain up her expertise by different youngsters’s books, and after two years she was capable of return to highschool — although she says her aunt beat her with a stick for insisting on returning to class.
The aunt loaded Daniella with chores — cooking, buying and laundry — and has tried to marry her off since she was 14. Daniella received within the behavior of doing her homework between 11 p.m. and 1 a.m., when the hut was quiet and her aunt couldn’t object.
Daniella walks 80 minutes every technique to college, with no breakfast or lunch, generally aching from malaria or a beating, as a result of she desires of going to school this fall and changing into a physician. “She’s exceptionally intelligent,” Valentino informed me, and he or she has ranked close to the highest of her class of 500.
“Nothing can cease me from going to college,” she informed me, however once I requested she acknowledged that she had no thought how she may increase the $5,000 a yr this might price.
As for Valentino, he misses America; he desires of Buffalo wings and hen chimichangas. He retains an American flag in his workplace and flies it within the schoolyard on particular days to remind college students that their training is feasible solely due to American donors (together with Instances readers — I’ve written in regards to the college a few occasions over time; for individuals who need to assist it, go to his basis’s web site). Valentino additionally hopes to draw American volunteer academics.
Valentino had malaria once I visited, however he gritted his enamel and picked me up from my guesthouse in his battered and dying pickup truck. A son of Africa who discovered success in America, Valentino acknowledges that he received the lottery of life and is set to assist those that didn’t.
Elon Musk, take observe.
I’m delighted to announce that Sofia Barnett, a senior at Brown College, is the winner of my 2025 win-a-trip contest. Sofia, an achieved pupil journalist from Texas, will accompany me on a reporting journey later this yr. The runner-up is Anvee Bhutani of the Columbia Journalism College. Due to all who utilized.
