During the second Sudanese Civil War, more than 27,000 boys were displaced and/or orphaned between 1983 and 2003 when government troops systematically attacked villages in southern Sudan killing many of the inhabitants, most of whom were civilians.

When villages were attacked, girls were raped, killed, taken as slaves to the north, or became servants or adopted children for other Sudanese families. As a result, relatively few girls made it to the refugee camps. The younger boys survived in large numbers because they were away tending herds or were able to escape into the nearby jungles. Orphaned and with no support, they would make epic journeys lasting years across the borders to international relief camps in Ethiopia and Kenya evading thirst, starvation, wild animals, insects, disease, and one of the most bloody wars of the 20th century. Some say they are the most badly war-traumatized children ever examined.

The boys who escaped were given the name “the Lost Boys” by international aid organizations. In 2001, about 3800 Lost Boys were resettled in the United States, where they are now scattered in about 38 cities. One of these children, John Dau, started the John Dau Sudan Foundation, raising money for the Sudanese refugees still needing help.

On the weekend of July 26 and 27, seven former Lost Boys of Sudan and a world-renowned kora player from Senegal will be in the Brattleboro area for a series of benefit events for Sudanese refugees.

Saturday, July 26
The Latchis Theatre
4:00 - Music by Youssoupha Sidibe, Kora master from Senegal
4:30 - Screening of GOD GREW TIRED OF US, the story of John Dau and the Lost Boys of Sudan.
$10 at the door

The Brattleboro Museum & Art Center
6:30 - Reception catered by the Riverview Café with a cash wine bar by Windham Wines and entertainment by Steve Leicach on balafon (West African xylophone).
$30 RSVP at 387-4766

or Tickets at these locations:

Dummerston
Walker Farm
Chester
Misty Valley Bookstore
Brattleboro
Everyone’s Books, Verde for Home and Garden, Windham Wines

Sunday, July 27
The Hayward Garden, Westminster West
1:00 to 5:00 - An afternoon of African music and food amid the splendor of renowned author and garden designer Gordon and Mary Hayward’s heavenly one and one-half acre gardens.

• John Dau and the Lost Boys in talking-circles
• Youssoupha Sidibe playing the Kora
• Balafon music, African drumming and Afro-Carribean percussion instruments with Steve Leicach
• Malian Cuisine
• Gifts and concessions

$10 at the gate

The weekend’s events are designed to offer members of the Southern Vermont community an opportunity to meet and talk with the former Lost Boys and to raise money for the John Dau Foundation to build and support medical clinics for Sudanese refugees.

John Dau himself will attend all the events, and he and other former Lost Boys plan to meet with local teenagers before the fundraisers on Saturday.

Youssoupha Sidibe, one of the world’s foremost kora players, will perform twice — at the film screening at the Latchis on Saturday afternoon and at the Haywards’ garden on Sunday. Sidibe will be coming from the West Coast specifically for this benefit performance.

Gordon and Mary Hayward have mobilized a group of local volunteers to organize the benefit events. Gordon Hayward explained that they were inspired to action when they watched a DVD of “God Grew Tired of Us.”

“The next day we phoned John Dau, who is now an adult studying at Syracuse University, and asked how we could help,” Gordon Hayward recalled. “He told us about the foundation he’s established, and when we said we’d like to organize a screening of the film and a reception in our garden, he said he would come with some of the other Lost Boys.”

Gordon said that Dau and the other Lost Boys in the film were the lucky ones.

“When the UN relocated them to the US, they left behind 27,000 young men and 29,000 young women who, for the last 12-14 years have been, in the parlance of refugee camps, ‘warehoused’,” Hayward said. “What especially struck us was that after walking 1,000 miles from southern Sudan to eventual safety in Kenya, after losing family and home, after living in crowded refugee conditions for years and then being uprooted to America, these young men remain optimistic, hopeful, hardworking and a credit to any community they live within. These are extraordinary people, and we want to help them help others.”

“That’s the point of the reception at the Museum on Saturday evening – to afford the opportunity for one-on-one conversation with these young me who have been through so much,” Hayward said.

Tickets to the reception are on sale at the Walker Farm in Dummerston and Misty Valley Bookstore in Chester, and in Brattleboro, tickets are available at Everyone’s Books on Elliot Street and at Verde for Home and Garden and Windham Wines on Main Street. Windham Wines will offer a cash bar at the reception, which is being catered by the Riverview Café.

“Tickets for the screening at the Latchis and the garden reception will be available at the door, but we’ll need to know how many people will be attending the reception at the Museum, so attendance for that will have to be by advance ticket sales or reservation,” Hayward said. “People can reserve a ticket by calling 387-4766.”

Reception tickets are also on sale at the Walker Farm in Dummerston and Misty Valley Bookstore in Chester.

The benefit weekend is a family endeavor for the Haywards. Their son Nathaniel, now living in California and producing world-music concerts part-time, offered to help. He contacted Youssoupha Sidibe, who volunteered to fly to Vermont with him just for the weekend to play at the events.

“Mary and I find it so satisfying to be able to share this experience with Nathaniel,” Gordon commented. “Given his experience producing concerts in California and Senegal, he’s helped us incorporate music as an important part of the weekend.”

For more information:

The John Dau Sudan Foundation

The Latchis Theatre

Gordon Hayward or call 802-387-4766