The Impossible Possible – Stephen Kamal

In October 2019, I went on a journey of self-discovery through my TEDx QUT talk “The power of a collectively shared experience”. As a former refugee who fled the war in Sudan at a young age into Kenya, Uganda, and finally to Australia at 16, my TEDx talk presented a chance to travel in time, to visit the Nuba Mountains and to learn more about my childhood, family, culture, and people through the lens of historical ethnography.

The chronology of events that I discovered transpired in the Nuba Mountains truly shook me to the core, US professor and Author Samuel Totten puts it best in his book “Genocide by Attrition”.

For 30 years the Nuba people and the people of Darfur faced the worst possible forms of dehumanisation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement. Sudanese government troops embarked on a campaign of violence, engineered famine and forced displacements through senseless wars that resulted in the destruction of lives, villages, farms and livelihoods, places of worship, and learning.

It was chilling to learn that in 2011, the government destroyed 100 of 141 schools through an aerial bombardment campaign. Consequently, schools and classrooms were conducted under trees, in caves, and in makeshift shelters completely at the mercy of the weather. Schools with as many as 1700 students had no books with which to teach and students had no books to read.

Just like one cannot build a house without a foundation, there can be no future without education. The power of knowledge lies in how we apply it. Knowing what I knew now I wanted to do something to resolve the issue of lack of books.

I was a living testimony to myself; a child forcefully removed from his parents who sought refuge in a refugee camp, embraced by strangers, given an opportunity at living life in Australia with the full freedoms and assurance of safety, self-expression without fear of persecution or retribution, and the possibility of self-actualization through meaningful employment made possible by education at a world class education institution at Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane.

Furthermore, during my TEDx research, I discovered that 1 in 4 or 250 million children in Sub-Saharan Africa were illiterate and the lack of books was a huge contributing factor. In 2020 I decided to start One In Four Children with a mission to eradicate poverty by building a future where all children can read and write.

I contacted my former teacher from ST James College and now confidant Mr Andrew Ebrington. I told him, `` Hey Andrew, I'd like to send a million books to Africa, I don’t know if you know any librarians, but I’d love to chat”. In the meantime, I scoured Gumtree and Facebook for books, called up schools and hopped on trains and buses to collect books from different places.

When ST James College, ST Joseph’s College Gregory Terrace, Iona College, Padua College, and All Hallows embraced, things escalated, fast! Together with Andrew, Duku Fore, and Peter Sambia, and a slew of Air Tasker drivers, my house, our friends’ garages, and even a church became our network of warehouses.

Through Andrew, Todd Crowley, another of ST James college’s past students, heard that we were struggling to ship the books to Sudan, he stepped up big time and helped us pay for the shipping. Full disclosure, I can never speak of Todd’s generosity without needing a tissue. Before long we were shipping a 40ft container with 30,000 books to Sudan, shortly after we were sending another load of 20,000 books to PNG.

We went from nothing to supporting over 35 school communities in Sudan and PNG experience the magic and joy of books. Through our Black-Tie Gala dinner fundraiser, the One In Four family helped us raise much needed funds to ship 60 pairs of sports shoes generously donated by Paul Tucker from We Give a Boot and 15 uniforms to Everest High Football Club in South Sudan. We have enough fuel in the tank to ship another container with 20,000 books at Iona College to PNG. I can honestly say that embarking on this from the beginning was the impossible Possible! I truly believe that we create possibilities by working together, by listening and embracing new relationships and ideas, and by being committed and consistent in whatever we do.

Commitment is the reason we start and consistency is the reason we grow and finish what we started.

I took a chance with One In Four in the hope that I would be able to help one person experience their version of a better self through education. I am so glad that through the people I have met, we have been able to dig our way through the mountain instead of letting how high it is scare us.