Deng’s family were farmers in South Sudan when a brutal civil war altered his life forever. At the age most Australian children are starting school, Deng was conscripted into the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. He began a harsh, brutal, relentless military training that saw this young boy trained to use an AK-47 and sent into battle. At age 12 Deng was smuggled out of Sudan into Kenya, and was eventually brought to Australia as a refugee by the UN. In 2005 he enrolled in a Bachelor of Law at Western Sydney University and became the first person in his family to graduate from university.
Deng’s is an inspiring story of a man who has overcome deadly adversity to become a lawyer and committed worker for the disenfranchised, helping refugees in Western Sydney, where he now has his own law practice, the AC Law Group. Deng’s story was the subject of this Western Sydney University video on him from September last year, which went viral on release and currently has around 2.5 million views. Deng gave this year’s NSW Australia Day address which is worth a look here, was painted for the 2016 Archibald Prize by Nick Stathopoulos, details here, and has been nominated for Australian of the Year 2017 and the Facebook post for this got a pretty incredible reaction.
http://www.the-retiree.com.au/features/competitions/win-songs-war-boy-book/
Australian Competitions Club
