“During one of the walks to school on our first days of the project, a group of African boys walked towards us, and before we knew it, our director began to speak to them enthusiastically in Hebrew.
We could not understand what was happening and couldn’t believe what we were hearing!
This was the first time I was exposed to the children of “Come True”.
A large group of refugee children and adolescents from South Sudan who were born / raised and educated in Israel after fleeing the brutal war that took place there.
The Stat
e of Israel deported the children and their families back to South Sudan when the war was over but shortly after the deportation another civil war began.
A few Israelis who knew the kids from Israel, set up the Come True project that managed to smuggle the children to Uganda and provide them with protection, home, food and education.
We were so curious after the sudden encounter on the street and were thirsty to get to know them more.
Yesterday we all officially met for the first time, the Israeli volunteers and the boys from South Sudan. We spoke English and Hebrew for two hours and slowly began to get to know each other. “Refugees” has never been a topic that I delved into and became too interested in, beyond that I will testify that I carried with me a lot of stigmas and generalizations about “the Sudanese from south Tel Aviv.”
I’m grateful for yesterday’s meeting. A humble and simple encounter that shattered stigmas and gave me the privilege of getting to know the real people behind the word “Sudanese Refugees”, their personal and complicated stories that are mind blowing when looking at such a young person were so interesting! I sat and listened in admiration to their aspirations and dreams, the desire to return to South Sudan as successful people with goals and objectives and finally building for themselves in their country that they deserve.”
