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About Giving Back ! The Newark High School Interact Club recently sponsored an innovative and whimsical fundraiser resulting in it raising $348 in contributions from students and school staff for a very worthwhile cause _ helping to build primary schools in South Sudan.! Interact President, Megan Kreuser, an NHS senior, is thrilled because that amount exceeded the club’s initial goal of raising $100 to benefit Building Minds in South Sudan (BMISS).! Interact received donations from NHS students and staff who voted with money, during recent lunch periods on which of five different staff groups they wanted to perform at the end of the BMISS assembly May 16th at NHS. ! While it ultimately ended up being neck and neck between faculty groups from the Science and Social Studies departments, the Social Studies department faculty prevailed when the Science Department’s “extremely last minute vote” put their rivals over the top,” Kreuser said.! “The fundraiser turned out much better than we expected,’’ she said. “It’s for a very good cause.’’! BMISS is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing educational opportunities to African villagers in South Sudan. The organization seeks to restore hope by providing education for people adversely affected by conflict in Sudan.! At a compelling early-morning assembly May 16, Sebastian Maroundit, president and co-founder of BMISS, passionately outlined the organization’s mission. With good reason. ! He was nine-years-old in 1988 when the rural village of Mayen-Abun in Twic County, South Sudan that he lived in with his family was suddenly attacked by gun-toting militia as part of the country’s civil war. Maroundit watched in horror as his five-year-old sister was shot and his mother, in terror, advised him to flee or meet the same fate as his sister.! “She said run or you’ll be like her,’’ Maroundit told his NHS audience May 16th.

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After civil war broke out in 1983, villages were attacked and most of the adults in the villages were killed. Maroundit’s mother watched her husband be tortured to death before her eyes as a result of the war.! Young Sudanese women and mature girls were kidnapped, raped, and murdered. Over 2 million lives were lost in the conflict. But nearly 23,000 children, “The “Lost Boys and Girls,” escaped death or enslavement by crossing the dessert and bush country of the Sudan on foot. Their amazing story, was chronicled in a documentary by former NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw. About 10-minutes of it was shown at the beginning of the assembly before Maroundit began speaking.! “I was one of the lucky ones, thousands didn’t make it,’’ he said.

! Maroundit and his cousin, Mathon Noi, were both 9 when they fled their village. They walked for three months on a long, dangerous journey until they found safety at relief camp in Ethiopia only to experience war there within three years. ! They tried to return to their country, but with war continuing there, they escaped from Ethiopia in 1991 and spent a year walking across the hot desert to a refugee camp in Kenya. There, both were educated through the 8th grade.! In 2001, they were two of 3,800 selected for resettlement in the United States. Both came to Rochester and with obvious language barriers, learned to adjust to American culture and attended Monroe Community College.! In the summer of 2007, after becoming American citizens, the cousins returned to their village in South Sudan. Though Sebastian lost his father during the war and Mathon lost his mother, they were reunited with their surviving parents after 18 years apart. They were dismayed to find their village in poor condition, with no roads or clean water. The

children of the village were being educated under a large tree, because the school had been destroyed.! Since that visit, they have been passionately committed to helping rebuild hope in their village by building two modest school buildings where now 805 students, including 300 girls, are receiving basic education.! Noi, who earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Niagara University and works as a financial analyst with Citicorp in Buffalo is co-founder of BMISS. Maroundit is a cashier trainer/bookkeeper at Strong Hospital and, as time has allowed, has been pursuing bachelor’s degree in management from SUNY Brockport.

! Each are frequent speakers throughout the region in hopes of raising awareness and funds in hopes of advancing BMISS goals that are:! • To build primary schools, first in the vi!age of Mayen-Abun in South Sudan, and then beyond.# • To provide gender equity through promoting education for girls# • To advance people’s ability to realize their fu! human potential and development# • To provide vi!age with a central hub (the school), which wi! restore the sense of community# • To train teachers, with cooperation of State government, improving the quality of education in Mayen-Abun vi!age and beyond.# • To encourage the sponsorship of the children who are doing we! at school.! Kreuser said Interact Club, “the high school version of Rotary Club” that does two fundraisers each year, picked BMISS to raise money for because they’d heard really good things about the organization.! Maroundit has previously spoken locally, including at the Newark Rotary Club. Newark Rotarian Linda Werts did volunteer work in his village in South Sudan.

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! ! ! Kreuser said feedback about the BMISS assembly has been positive.! ! “I think kids really liked him (Maroundit). He was interesting and different. And they could relate to things he said, like the answers he gave them to their questions about cheeseburgers and snow,’’ she said.! ! After the assembly, Maroundit, who generally speaks two to three times a week somewhere in the region along with BMISS “ambassador” and program chair Judy Schwartz, a retired Rochester elementary teacher, said his main purpose in speaking to high school students is to help them “appreciate what they have in America.”! ! Near the close of the assembly, he told NHS students they were “lucky and blessed” to have been born in this country and to be able to attend fine schools. He urged them to make the most of the opportunities America offers them.! ! “He opened their eyes to a whole new world,” Kreuser said. “Often times, kids don’t realize what conditions are like in other countries.”! ! Anyone interested in having Maroundit and Schwartz speak to a club, organization, church or school should contact her at 585-442-5111. For more information about BMISS, visit their website at: http://www.bmiss.org! One final note. Kreuser said the NHS students enjoyed seeing members of the Social Studies department’s hamming it up during their animated, lip sync performance to the sounds of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” onstage at the end of the assembly. “Everyone really loved it,’’ she said.!!