Growing up, I always wanted to be a journalist. I admired how reporters and broadcasters would do their work. Every evening, I would sit quietly and watch the news or listen to the radio. Afterwards, I would practice my journalism skills with my siblings as the audience. The daily news I listened to was about my life. As a refugee child… Read more →←
Author: Mercy Kolok
Marshalina John, 13 I remember the night before I got my first period. I was sleeping next to my mother when I suddenly developed severe stomach pain. I didn’t know what it was. I thought I was sick. My mother put a cold cloth on my stomach to relieve the pain, but it was unbearable. I could hardly sleep. In the morning, I felt a… Read more →←
The dreaded day had finally come. I woke up with an excruciating stomach pain and my back felt so hot that it could easily work as a stovetop. I wasn’t sure which was worse: the stomach pain or the back pain. I was not sure what the problem was until I got up from my bed. My next dilemma was how to tell my mother, as we had never… Read more →←
I will always remember that night in December 2013. My family had had dinner and spent some time discussing the events of the day before heading to bed. About 30 minutes later, I heard gunshots. I thought they were the usual gunshots that I often heard in Juba but these continued throughout the night. At some point, my father gathered us… Read more →←
The women and their children had gathered in the shade of a huge tree serving as a treatment center for malnutrition. We were in Aweil, in the north of South Sudan and where child malnutrition rates are the highest in the country. Never before had I seen so many people suffering from malnutrition in one place. Everyone looked at us… Read more →←
