Today is November 7 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “How often do you remind yourself to learn and grow?”
People who navigate the chaos like Valentino Achak Deng understand that even amidst extreme conditions, they have the potential to grow and learn. Growing up in a remote Sudanese town, Deng was caught up in his country’s civil war.
Separated from his friends and family, Deng became one of the 27,000 “lost boys” of Sudan who were displaced and/or orphaned during war where an unimaginable two million people died. SMLHis family lost to the civil war, Deng had the courage to find a refugee camp where he learned to read and write.
After a while he was accepted as a refugee into the United States, settled in Atlanta, GA, and met author Dave Eggers who spent the next three years writing What Is The What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng: A Novel.
When the book was published in 2006, Deng established the Valentino Achak Deng Foundation. All proceeds from the book support Valentino’s Foundation.
The Foundation’s first major project is the construction of an educational center in Valentino’s hometown of Marial Bai. The Marial Bai Secondary School is the first high school in the entire region, where decades of war completely devastated the educational system.
In July 2015, Mr Deng became the minister for education in Northern Bahr el-Ghazal, one of the 10 states in South Sudan which gained its independence from Sudan on 9 July 2011.
Mr Deng says even he finds it "difficult to imagine", but here he is, a boy in rags transformed into a minister in a smart suit.
As Deng said "The lesson I can draw is that people can always learn, come through tough times and persevere and grow.” Do you remind yourself to learn and grow?