From left, four students from South Sudan who are attending Mooseheart High School this year: Wal Khat, Mangisto Deng, Makur Puou and Akim Nyang.  Photo courtesy of Mooseheart High School.

Four from war-torn South Sudan find home at Mooseheart

There’s no sure way of knowing, but it’s quite likely that Manute Bol was the tallest-ever member of the Loyal Order of Moose.
This summer, one year after the 7-foot, 7-inch former NBA player from Sudan died, his reach has extended across the 7,500 miles from his homeland to the campus that his Moose membership supported.

In May, four boys hailing from the area of Sudan which has now become South Sudan arrived at Mooseheart to undertake their high school educations. Makur Puou, Akim Nyang, Wal Khat and Mangisto Deng are all sophomores at Mooseheart this fall.
“Manute Bol was a member of Chicopee Falls, MA Lodge 1849,” Mooseheart Executive Director Scott Hart said. “He had met some of the students on a trip of theirs to the East Coast. And he came to Mooseheart in 2005, met the students and had a real fondness in his heart for our students here. At the time, we thought about ways we could help other children from Bol’s Dinka tribe to come here, but we didn’t have any connections or any way to identify students to get them to the U.S.”
That linkage has come thanks to a student who spent 2010-11 at Mooseheart – Deng Aguoc – and to the efforts of the A-HOPE (African Hoop Opportunities Providing an Education) Foundation, run by Founder-President Mark Adams. Founded in 2004, A-HOPE’s mission is “to provide deserving student athletes a seamless process of obtaining a student visa, transportation to the United States, making sure they are acclimated to their new environment and providing them with an opportunity to receive an outstanding education.”
Deng came to Mooseheart as a senior and graduated and is now attending Lake Land Community College in Mattoon.
“(Aguoc) had lost his scholarship at the school he was attending in Nebraska and was at a crossroads where he was going to have to go back to Sudan,” Hart said. “With our residential program, we were able to step in and we met with Mark Adams. I’m happy Mooseheart was able to step into that situation where the boy was not going to be able to complete his senior year. He is doing well in college and is going to participate in their basketball program.”
Aguoc was unable to play basketball at Mooseheart due to the IHSA’s rules requiring transfer students to not participate in interscholastic sports for 365 days.
Even as Aguoc was preparing to graduate from Mooseheart in May, four boys from Sudan arrived on the Mooseheart campus. These four — Puou, Nyang, Khat and Deng — arrived at Mooseheart, navigated a sea of red tape and finally arriving from Sudan in May, two months before the July 9 independence day when South Sudan became a country.
“Mooseheart is changing our lives,” Puou said. “We have learned a lot of things. Mooseheart is taking care of us. We have a place to sleep. We have enough clothes and we have a good education. So we thank the members of the Moose because our lives will be better.”
For 98 years, Mooseheart has provided a safe haven for children. Most of those children have been from the United States, Canada or England. But the heart of the Moose fraternity has always extended to all corners of the globe.
Take for example, the Moose Lodge opened in Paris, France during World War I, a Lodge which hosted a Christmas party for orphaned French children in 1918. And if the words “war-torn” and “Africa” have all too often become synonymous, there are truly dangerous situations in Africa and countries where the benefits of an American education are multifold.
There is also a solid history of Mooseheart accepting children whose birthplace was Africa. Nigerian native Idris Odunewu was admitted in 2001 and he graduated in 2005. Odunewu subsequently graduated from Marquette University. Odunewu’s sister Ahminat graduated from Mooseheart in 2009 and younger brother Hameed is a high school freshman this year.
“When these boys have traveled to see Moose members this summer, they’ve been extremely well-received,” Hart said. “Certainly, they’re a topic of conversation when you have young men at their heights. But you see that openness with the members. We have students who were born in Mexico or in Canada and we have quite a few who have emigrated from Nigeria, Ghana or Sierra Leone as well as these boys from South Sudan. Mooseheart is a melting pot and our members know that. They accept every child here, whether that child is 1-year-old or 18.”
South Sudan, as a new nation, is not currently at war with anyone. But there have been reports of attacks by Sudanese nationals on their South Sudanese neighbors. The boys also say that while there are universities in their country, the quality of higher education in the U.S. makes gaining a college degree something that will be much-prized back home.
“These are young men who have traveled halfway around the world and their heart’s desire is to get an American education,” Hart said. “They realize the value of a high school diploma but more than that, they desire a college education. You get that sense that they want to help their fellow countrymen. They see the destruction of civil war and the devastation that it has caused. The infrastructure in southern Sudan is poor at best and they want to give back to do their part to see improvements in their country.”
Fighting between people from what are now the two parts of Sudan has left many scars back home. The troubled Darfur region is located in Sudan, but the violence that has afflicted that area since 2003 has impacted on South Sudan. There is currently no fighting ongoing in the new country and Puou said “our fight now is for development of our country and education.” But the peace at Mooseheart is still noticeable.
The boys all said they learned of Mooseheart around October, 2010 through the A-HOPE Foundation, but then used the Internet to learn more about the campus and the school.
“We were told that you can come here and go to school,” Khat said. “If you are good at track, you can run track or if you are good at playing basketball, you can play basketball. But you can get an education.”
As commuting distances go, the boys from South Sudan have as far to go as anyone on-campus to visit friends and family.
“When I first came here, I was a little scared because I didn’t talk very well in English when I came here,” Deng said. “But right now, I am feeling good.”
But homesickness is easier to deal with when there is a purpose for being separated  from home.
“We really, really, really miss the people at home, we came here for a reason,” Puou said. “All of us would hope that the three years go fast, and then we will go to college. And when we get done with college, we will go back to our country and help them.”
The four boys each live in different Family Homes. Being split in this manner is a good thing, say the boys, who are integrating well into their new situations.
“It’s hard, but it’s good for us,” Deng said. “But if we went to the same house, all of us, we’d never have learned English. Every day, we meet at the school. It’s no problem and it’s good.”
Throughout the summer, while participating in all the normal activitie
s in which Mooseheart children participate, the children from South Sudan have taken English classes, and their communication skills are greatly improved.
“When we came, we were scared because ‘how can we stay at Mooseheart if we don’t learn English?’” Puou said. “But when you come here, you feel like you are at home. You feel like you have your father and mother in the home and your older brothers are taking care of you.”
Those new brothers in the Family Homes have been instrumental in helping the boys settle into Mooseheart, which is something that happens with all new children when they arrive on-campus. It’s just that, in this case, the support has been beyond saying “welcome” and moral backing.
“They have been trying to teach me the names of things in English,” Puou said. “They go ‘this is called’ and ‘this is called.’ It’s very nice and I’m better because of it.”
While they have been taking English classes all summer, the official start of school is Aug. 22, and the quartet enter the year as high school sophomores. It is a day the boys collectively are anticipating with great excitement.
“We want to get a good education and we will get a good education and then we will go back and help our families,” Puou said.
Just the look of Mooseheart is different than South Sudan, but so is the feel of the campus. The combination of heat and humidity is different than in central Africa. And this winter, the boys will experience snow for the first time.
“We’ve only seen snow in the movies,” Nyang said. Khat added that making a snowman will be something to look forward to.
Though the summer, the boys traveled with their Family Homes. Nyang visited Pennsylvania and Moosehaven in Florida. Deng traveled to Iowa. Puou moved around the country with his AAU basketball team and Khat visited 150-acre Camp Ross, a campground just for Mooseheart students just outside Mt. Morris, 70 miles from the Mooseheart campus.
Along the way, the South Sudanese quartet have had a chance to meet Moose members, to impress them with what they have learned and also to be impressed by the men and women who have made Mooseheart a reality since 1913.
“They made something good,” Puou said. “They give a chance to get a good education. For children with nowhere to go, they give opportunities, they create them."
And Puou added that because of the work of the Moose on behalf of these four boys, the name of the fraternity is well-known, and well-respected in another corner of the globe.
“People back home know Moose members are taking care of their children,” Puou said. “I’m very happy for Moose members and I will take this message back to our families so they can continue to know about Moose and Mooseheart and how they are changing our lives.”
There is no getting around the fact that these boys are talented athletes. Puou, Nyang and Deng play basketball, and Nyang stands 7 feet tall; Puou and Deng are each over 6-6. Khat is a long-distance runner. By IHSA rules, the four cannot compete at all this 2011-12 school year, so they will become eligible for competition as juniors.
“It’s going to be hard to sit on the outside and watch them play, but I know that, next year, I’m going to play,” Deng said. “But this is our team and when they play, I’m going to support them.”
Deng will spend some of his time waiting to play having a torn knee ligament repaired. He said he is happy the surgery will be done in the U.S., though the need for that surgery leaves him all the more aware of the need to get an education.
“I would like some day to play in the NBA,” Deng said. “But maybe my leg is broken and I can’t play. If I don’t have an education, I can’t do anything. But if I have that education, I can go back home and do something beautiful, better than any sport.”
“We all came here and hope to play,” Puou said. “If you play and don’t have education, you can’t do much. We know that if we come to the United States, we can get a good education. That’s the first thing. We’re at Mooseheart to get an education. There are people better than us at basketball in Sudan. But they don’t care about getting an education, so they aren’t here.”
In living at Mooseheart, the four boys from South Sudan are very close in mileage to their country’s other famous basketball-playing export – Luol Deng, who plays for the Chicago Bulls. Hart said no plans have yet been made for the boys to arrange a meeting, but the quartet all speak highly of the current NBA star.
“They certainly look up to him,” Hart said. “They see Luol Deng not only for his talent on the basketball court but for what they have seen of him when he returns home. It raises the spirits of people when someone like Luol Deng returns home to give back. He is a role model to these boys.”

—Darryl Mellema