Overcoming challenge through optimism and opportunities: Majok, Amala peacebuilding alumnus and now medical student shares his story
Majok is a third year medical student and Amala alumnus, currently studying at the prestigious University of Cairo in Egypt. Majok took part in Amala’s Peacebuilding in your Community course in 2019, run by partner URISE, in Kakuma Camp where he had arrived from South Sudan in 2010. When he spoke to Amala, Majok’s passion for social change shone through, as someone who has been a teacher, led community organisations and promoted peace amongst youth in communities in Kakuma and South Sudan.
Majok is also part of the Millennium Fellowship Class of 2023, a semester-long leadership programme through which he has been developing his capacity to make social impact and leadership skills. We spoke to Majok about how the Amala course built his skills and motivation to make change, his educational journey, and the many challenges he has faced and overcome along the way.
Majok was supposed to finish secondary school in Kenya, but was not able to because of the high school fees that refugees had to pay in the Kakuma Camp at the time. There was nobody to pay Majok’s school fees, so he was “just there in the camp, without doing anything”, when a friend introduced him to Amala.
“I did the Peacebuilding in your Community course which was a very wonderful course. It really helped me, because at that time I didn’t have any motivation, or the energy to move forward. But when I started Amala and interacted with other colleagues on the course, I got this energy to move forward. I was involved in so many things which were happening within the community.”
During the Amala course, Majok was introduced to project management and how to present a project to a group, as well as how to take the learnings from the Peacebuilding course back to the community to create impact and solve challenges. On the course, Majok came up with an idea to give children the opportunity to showcase their talents: Kakuma Youth Talent Achievers. Majok and his project group knew of the issues among youth such as drug abuse and a high school dropout rate, both leading to an increase of tensions and violence. He goes on to expand on the motivation behind Kakuma Youth Talent Achievers: “so many children within the camp don’t have anything to do. If we can find something which can showcase the talent that they have within them, then we will be able to bring children a brighter future. If you start something while you are still young, that's when it will determine the magnitude of your future.”
Majok (top, second left) with his peers
Majok speaks about all the talented youth in the camp: footballers, storytellers, writers, and young people who have the potential to make an impact in their communities. “But there’s no one who is there for them, telling them that they have talent, what they can do with it and how to bring out that talent and show it to the world”, says Majok. Part of what he learnt through the Peacebuilding course was bringing these young people who are all from very different backgrounds together, on shared ground, and around a shared goal. Otherwise, he says, tensions and hostility can build and they get into trouble. In South Sudan, for example, Majok explains that there are so many communities and tribes with different perspectives and cultures. There’s Nuer, his tribe, and there’s Dinka, and there are Equatorian tribes. Through the Peacebuilding course, he learnt the power of uniting people around a similar and specific objective to enable people to see what peace can look like.
“So when we unite them, they will be able to be people who can not only bring peace to their own communities, but they will also be able to go and unite others from different tribes within their country.”
Majok (right) on campus in Cairo
Through taking part in the Amala course, Majok unleashed his energy and passion for making social change. “By then,” he explains, “I had involved myself with so many things within the community, but I wasn’t earning anything in terms of money.” Life in the camp was hard, and as the first born child, Majok had always assumed responsibility for his family and knew that he needed to leave Kakuma in order to seek opportunities to both positively change his family’s life as well as his society. In 2019, Majok went back to South Sudan, in order to complete his secondary education and earn a living.
However, during the same year, Majok had to flee once again. His tribe was driven out of the city to a camp in the South Sudanese countryside, making Majok a refugee for the second time.
“But this didn’t affect me negatively. It is what gives me the nature of moving, seeing things, seeing possibilities. Even though I faced a lot of challenges, I’m always seeing opportunities. I just have to look for solutions and move straight until I’m focused.”
Majok’s optimistic outlook on life meant that upon becoming a maths and physics teacher in South Sudan in the school where he had finished his secondary education, he took up as many opportunities as he could, knowing that the more things he got involved with, the more possibilities he would unlock for himself.
“After the Peacebuilding in Your Community course, I got involved with so many things within the community and any progress that I’ve made is because I started this with Amala, and it was this energy that I got from Amala that gave me the strength of moving forward every time. Because I feel like I can do something, give it a chance to make it grow as I move forward.”
In 2020, a golden opportunity came along for Majok, as the school “came to see me as someone who is impacting the community”. The South Sudanese Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources were offering scholarships to exceptional individuals and Majok was selected for one of the best universities in Africa, Cairo University in Egypt.
“That’s when I learnt that things have to move. Not necessarily the way that you want, that you don’t even expect - but it’s all because of the positivity that you have. You get things right and you get what you want.”
Now in his third year studying medicine, Majok knows that as a doctor, he will be able to help those in his surroundings and his community at large. He describes Egyptian and South Sudanese cultures as very different, but goes by the proverb, “when in Rome, do as the Romans do”. Though life at the university campus is harmonious, generally Majok finds Egyptian culture to be closed-minded with little sense of global citizenship. After finishing his studies, he either wants to return to South Sudan or go further afield, “to a better place where I can be seen as a human being and equal to someone who is from that place.”
Majok is the first person in his whole family to be educated, part of his motivation for furthering his studies. When he was at secondary school in South Sudan, Majok had never thought that he would be given the opportunity to go on to higher education. “The most fortunate thing that my family did was to send me to secondary school, and then I had to find ways to make the dream come true. And that was what I did.”
Majok describes studying medicine as “the hardest thing I’ve ever tried. You have to be reading all the time, you have to attend lectures, and then when you come back you have to read”. But Majok knows better than anyone that he must push through the challenges, not only in education, but in life. He tells of his motivations behind studying medicine. “I became a medical student because I want to solve something in my community”, Majok says. He knows that people in his community don’t go to seek medical help before problems take hold for a variety of reasons, and wants to do projects which promote preventative rather than reactive care, as well as spreading awareness of the importance of proactively looking after yourself.
He was recently selected to be part of the Millennium Fellowship’s Class of 2023, and was selected from over 44,000 student applicants. In Majok’s words, the fellowship “works on giving opportunities to undergraduate students who have the positive mindset of coming up with solutions that communities are facing” - like Majok, and the mindset Amala had been part of helping him build. Part of the reason that the Millennium Fellowship appealed to Majok was the opportunities it could provide, and Majok has demonstrated throughout our conversation that he is someone who embraces any chances and challenges that come his way.
He is also taking part in the Aspire Leaders Programme, which aims to transform the lives of low income, first generation college students and refugees around the world. Both programmes provide Majok with the opportunity to learn, through webinars, seminars and conferences, interacting with influential people around the world and listening to others’ stories of overcoming barriers and the journeys they have taken.
For the Millennium Fellowship, Majok had to conceptualise a project which could make a sustainable impact in the world. He thought back to the idea he had come up with during the Amala Peacebuilding course that he took part in all those years ago - of the Kakuma Youth Talent Achievers. “That was how I came up with the idea [for the Millennium Fellowship project]. It's like, I still have the mindset that I had within the camp when I was doing the Amala Peacebuilding in your Community course in Kakuma”. Majok’s ideas to help children unleash their skills had not gone away. In Egypt, he says, there is a high proportion of South Sudanese children who live on the streets, many of whom are orphans or whose parents are not around. Some have parents who are not in a position to be able to pay for their schooling. Despite being thousands of miles away from home, Majok sees them as part of the community and wants to be part of the solution.
“I always go back to the knowledge that I got from Amala, because without that knowledge, I wouldn’t be able to think like a person who can solve challenges.”
Majok parted with some words of wisdom that he has formed along his way, from a refugee camp in Kenya to studying to be a doctor at one of Africa’s top universities. “What I can tell people who are chasing their dreams is this: it will happen. Maybe you don’t have the power to make your own life, but there are a lot of opportunities. You have to start from somewhere. If you’re in a position where you are struggling with no opportunities, you have to move outside your comfort zone and see things in another way”.