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Stipanov, Alexander / A Long Walk to Water

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Southampton Intermediate School Daily Bell Schedules 2020-2021

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Salva's Website

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It all started with a Lost Boy of Sudan who just kept walking...

Water for South Sudan began when a Lost Boy from a rural village in southwestern Sudan returned home, only to find his father fighting deadly waterborne parasites.

After seeing his father's condition, Salva decided to take matters into his own hands and help his community access better water, sanitation, and hygiene practices.

And today, we call this movement Water for South Sudan!

5 MILLION

people in South Sudan live without daily access to safe water and sanitation services.

3.7 MILES
Children, often girls, spend their days walking for water. They walk an average of 3.7 miles per trip. Sometimes they make multiple trips to obtain water, carrying up to 40 pounds (18 kgs) of water each time.

10 PERCENT
of people in South Sudan have access to basic sanitation services

20 Years of Watering the Seeds of Change

Water Wells

We help drill, maintain, and restore water wells so the people in South Sudan have access to clean water all year-round.

Hygiene

We make sure to educate communities about hygiene so that the clean water from existing wells doesn't get contaminated due to poor hygiene practices.

Sanitation

Our sanitation program makes sure people have access to latrines so communities can prevent the spread of diseases.

Subscribe to The Wellspring, our monthly newsletter.

Stay up-to-date with our news and events.

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people in South Sudan live without daily access to safe water and sanitation services. Children, often girls, spend their days walking for water. They walk an average of 3.7 miles per trip. Sometimes they make multiple trips to obtain water, carrying up to 40 pounds (18 kgs) of water each time.

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Follow the rubric!
Your cover art, summary, book review, teaser, biography, etc. should be in your own words. They should not be copied from the novel.

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What does it mean to be a refugee? - Benedetta Berti and Evelien Borgman

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Want to conserve water? Add up your daily water use and get your water footprint with our online calculator, then use the tips to learn how to save water.

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I Kept Walking | Salva Dut | TEDxYouth@BeaconStreet

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Here's where you can record your information from the exhibit exploration.

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A Long Walk to Water Booklet  Bane Version

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Want to conserve water? Add up your daily water use and get your water footprint with our online calculator, then use the tips to learn how to save water.

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This article was most recently revised and updated by

Nuer, people who live in the marsh and savanna country on both banks of the Nile River in South Sudan. They speak an Eastern Sudanic language of the Nilo-Saharan language family.

The Nuer are a cattle-raising people devoted to their herds, although milk and meat must be supplemented by the cultivation of millet and the spearing of fish. Because the land is flooded for part of the year and parched for the rest of it, they spend the rainy season in permanent villages built on the higher ground and the dry season in riverside camps.

Politically, the Nuer form a cluster of autonomous communities, within which there is little unity and much feuding; homicides are settled by payments of cattle effected through the mediation of a priest. The basic social group is the patrilineal lineage. Groups of lineages are organized into clans. The members of a clan have in their territory a slightly privileged status, although they form a minority of its population. The majority belong to other clans or are descendants of the neighbouring Dinka, large numbers of whom have been subdued by the Nuer and incorporated into their society. In each community the men are divided into six age sets.

Marriage, which is polygynous, is marked by the giving of cattle by the bridegroom's people to the bride's kin. Because it is held that every man must have at least one male heir, it is the custom for a man's kin, should he die unmarried, to marry a wife to his name and beget children by her, a custom known as "ghost marriage."

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The Nuer pray and sacrifice to a spirit associated with the sky but also thought to be ubiquitous, like the air. This spirit is conceived of as a single creative spirit in relation to mankind as a whole, but it is also figured in different representations in relation to different social groups, such as clans, lineages, and age sets, and it may then be symbolized by material forms, often animals or plants.

Amy McKenna, Senior Editor.

Learn More in these related Britannica articles:

South Sudan: Ethnic groups

...the population, followed by the Nuer, who constitute about one-fifth. Other groups include the Zande, the Bari, the Shilluk, and the Anywa (Anwak). There is a small Arab population in South Sudan....

primitive culture: Herding societies

Among the Nuer, as among other African cattle herders, horticulture may be practiced in time of need, but it is considered degrading toil whereas herding is a very prideful occupation. The ethnologist of the Nuer, E.E. Evans-Pritchard, wrote:...

sacrifice: Theories of the origin of sacrifice

...of the religion of the Nuer, a people in South Sudan, that for them sacrifice is a gift intended "to get rid of some danger of misfortune, usually sickness." They establish communication with the god not to create a fellowship with him but only to keep him away. Evans-Pritchard acknowledged,...

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Nuer, people who live in the marsh and savanna country on both banks of the Nile River in South Sudan. They speak an Eastern Sudanic language of the Nilo-Saharan language family. The Nuer are a cattle-raising people devoted to their herds, although milk and meat must be supplemented by the

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Audio version

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At this exhibit, you will first attempt to lift the full 5-gallon bucket. Could you lift it? Could anyone in your group lift it? After you make your attempt to lift the bucket, you will pick up the half full bucket and carry it to the end of the hall and back. Do not drop the bucket! Imagine that was your only source of water. Once you have made your trip down the hall with the water, answer the questions in your booklet.

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How to carry five gallons of water on your head | WaterAid

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Villages in South Sudan being burnt to ashes by rebels

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Villages in South Sudan being burnt to ashes by rebels

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United Nations refugee camp in Wau, South Sudan

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United Nations refugee camp in Wau, South Sudan

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Sudanese refugees walking through a sandstorm

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Sudanese refugees walking through a sandstorm

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Men bathing along the Nile River in South Sudan

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Men bathing along the Nile River in South Sudan

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This article was most recently revised and updated by

Dinka, also called Jieng, people who live in the savanna country surrounding the central swamps of the Nile basin primarily in South Sudan. They speak a Nilotic language classified within the Eastern Sudanic branch of the Nilo-Saharan languages and are closely related to the Nuer. Numbering some 4,500,000 in the early 21st century, the Dinka form many independent groups of 1,000 to 30,000 persons. Those groups are organized on a regional, linguistic, and cultural basis into clusters, of which the best-known are the Agar, Aliab, Bor, Rek, Twic (Tuic, Twi), and Malual. The Dinka are primarily transhumant pastoralists, moving their herds of cattle to riverine pastures during the dry season (December to April) and back to permanent settlements in savanna forest during the rains, when their food crops, principally millet, are grown. Each group is internally segmented into smaller political units with a high degree of autonomy. Because of the vast geographic area they occupy, the Dinka exhibit great diversity of dialect, although they value intra-group unity in the face of enemies.

By tradition, certain of their patrilineal clans provide priest-chiefs ("masters of the fishing spear"), whose position is validated by elaborate myths. Spiritual leadership and intervention are important to the Dinka, who are intensely religious and for whom God (Nhial) and many ancestral spirits play a central and intimate part in everyday life. Anything from a lie to a murder may be an occasion for sacrificial propitiation of the divine.

The Dinka ritualize the passage from boyhood to manhood through age-old ceremonies during which a number of boys of similar age undergo hardship together before abandoning forever the activity of milking cows, which had marked their status as children and servers of men. Cattle nonetheless retain a central position in daily life.

During the last two decades of the 20th century, when South Sudan was still part of Sudan, the Dinka's traditional way of life was seriously threatened by the Khartoum-based government's attempt to impose Islamic law on the non-Muslim south. The resulting civil war in Sudan pitted Arab militias against their customary rivals, particularly the Dinka. Conditions worsened as the Dinka and Nuer, both southern Sudanese, also turned against each other. In 1999, however, the Wunlit Dinka-Nuer Covenant was signed and a cease-fire instituted between the two southern ethnic groups. The larger civil war raged on until a Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed in 2005.

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Kathleen Kuiper, Senior Editor.

Learn More in these related Britannica articles:

South Sudan: Ethnic groups

...largest ethnic group is the Dinka, who constitute about two-fifths of the population, followed by the Nuer, who constitute about one-fifth. Other groups include the Zande, the Bari, the Shilluk, and the Anywa...

the Shilluk, Dinka, and Nuer. The Shilluk are sedentary agriculturists whose land is watered by the Nile. The Dinka and Nuer are pastoralists whose movements are dictated by the Nile's seasonal flow. They migrate with their herds from the river's shores during the dry season, to high...

African religions: Worldview and divinity

...to a myth of the Dinka of South Sudan, God withdrew from the world after the first woman lifted her pestle to pound millet and struck the sky. The story, which is found in many traditions across the continent, explains that, although this withdrawal introduced toil, sickness, and death, it...

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Dinka, people who live in the savanna country surrounding the central swamps of the Nile basin primarily in South Sudan. They speak a Nilotic language classified within the Eastern Sudanic branch of the Nilo-Saharan languages and are closely related to the Nuer. Numbering some 4,500,000 in the

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You must click on the open in new window button in the bottom right hand corner of the box to access this video.

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A history of modern Sudan | The Economist

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One Day I Had to Run

My first memories of my childhood start when I was about five years old in my homeland of Sudan, the day when my parents' house was burned. It was the last day I saw them. I ran with thousands of other young children in a very hard journey we made it across the desert all the way to Ethiopia. I was small so the other children carried me there. I have many memories of my time in Ethiopia. I survived through the worst sort of life that I'd ever seen. Every day people were dying. I was living with a group of children in Panyido, Ethiopia who had also lost their families. In Panyido, I couldn't do a lot of the things that the other children did because I was the youngest. For example, when they swam in the river I couldn't do it because the crocodiles would pick on me. I had to be scared all the time. I was good at climbing trees, but not at swimming. One day I decided to cross the river with a few of my friends who carried me across so we could get to a tree to catch some mongoose. Somebody came with a gun and he shot at us in the tree. He was an Ethiopian who hated us. We all had to jump down. We fell into the river. When I jumped into the river, I went too deep and my stomach was bleeding and I couldn't breathe. I thought I would be someone who wouldn't live anymore. It was painful. One of my friends was killed and one kid drowned in the water. They never found his body. I lived.

In 1991, when the government of Ethiopia fell apart, the new government chased us out of Panyido. We were chased to the edge of a big river that ran very fast, called Gillo. They kept shooting at us, so either you jumped in the water and they knew that you would drown because the water was way too fast or you would be shot. I didn't know how to swim so all day I watched people being killed. There was a lot of crying. The people crossing the river had to throw all their bags away but it didn't do any good because the shooting continued. I was crying as people near me were being shot. The river was full of people. You realized later they were all dead. I needed to get across the river. I was thinking all day what I could do about it. I knew there was no one to help me. It seemed like forever. I was too little and I didn't have parents to help me cross the river and I didn't know whether my brother had already made it across or not or where he was. I remembered how the elders had shown us how to protect ourselves, so I covered myself with a person who was dead. When the shooting cooled down, I asked the boy next to me if he would try to cross the river with me. He didn't know how to swim either. I threw myself in. I don't know how, but the river was moving so fast it brought me to the other side. That's how I crossed the river that killed so many people.

I followed the other children who survived to a place called Pachala. It took three days walking by foot. We didn't have water or anything. Pachala was on the Sudan side of the border with Ethiopia. When we got there, we saw hunger like I'd never seen in my life. There was no UN, no nothing. If you found one kernel of corn you lived off that for a day or two. Water and a little corn. It was a tough life. We lived like that for two months. Then the UNHCR came in and started bringing food. Just as things got a little better with food, the enemy from Ethiopia crossed the border and the fighting began again. We had to leave Pachala. Before I could leave, one of the ladies told me to wait while everyone left so they could see if I could be carried out in a Red Cross car for the injured and the smallest children, so I stayed behind.
A month after the rest of the kids had left, I was playing in the little river with the other children and the enemy came. While I was jumping in the water, I heard a sound. It was a bullet, but I didn't know what it was. When I got out of the water, the kids I was playing with were gone. I couldn't run because the bullets were all around me. I stayed flat and waited until nighttime. It was dark. I escaped from the river to the airstrip. There was also shooting at the airstrip. I stayed down. I tried to go to my house. I didn't know that the people who were living with me were all gone. When I got to my house, I accidentally kicked a can and the enemy heard me. They captured me. They took me to the place where they had a lot of people they'd captured. I stayed there for most of the night. Sometime before morning hours, I escaped under the fence.

I walked all the way to Oboth. On my way, I found one of my friends dead on the road. I had lived with him. His name was Mabil. It took me a long time to get to Oboth. On the way, there was a lot of shelling on the road. I thank God I was not killed. The shells missed me. When I got to Oboth, I met with the Sudanese people. I walked for three days to get to a place called Okila. I found the Sudanese Red Cross lady that had told me not to leave Pachala. She was still alive. I was happy. From there, we went to a place called Buma. In Buma, I found the UN and they announced that they would take the little children. At night, we were trying to sleep but some people came and shot at us. Three of my friends were killed. One was my father's brother-in-law. He was sleeping in the same bed as my brother, but my brother Aleer Gideon did not get shot. I ran into a tent but I didn't know there was a cooking fire inside. I threw myself in the fire to escape the shooting. I was burned. In the morning, after we got shot at, we left Magose to go to Kapoeta. We didn't stop there. We were with Red Cross vehicles and we went all the way to Nairus. We stayed there. There was no food for a while. The UN had to come in and give us food.

While we were in Nairus, the enemy captured Kapoeta again so the UN decided to bring us to Lokichiogio across the border into Kenya. When we came to Lokichiogio, we lived there but were still scared that something might happen again so the UN decided to bring us Kakuma, Kenya further in from the border. This was in 1992. In Kakuma, the native people treated us badly because they didn't know us. They were nomadic people called Turkana. They didn't know Sudanese. In 1994, I went back to Sudan. In 1995, I went to Ifo in Kenya. I lived in a refugee camp there trying to find a way to get to America. Three years later, I flew out of Nairobi to America and started high school in Rochester, Minnesota. I didn't know if I would find a good way of living anymore before I came to America. When I graduated from high school, I started community college and now I'll be going to Winona State University.

It took me a long time to realize that I have gained a lot from living with so many people in the refugee camps. Nobody can believe it that I can speak 14 different languages. It was a part of learning while going through bad things. You can go through a lot but one day things can change. With my classmates, I don't compare myself to them. I didn't have a good life when I was a young kid, but today I've learned more and I have a good life. This is a summary of my experiences but there is more to explain for each example I've given. I'm so glad I'm still alive and this is my story.

-- John Deng Langbany, September 2, 2004.

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One Day I Had to Run | Lost Boys of Sudan | POV | PBS

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John Deng Langbany, a refugee who was five years old when he fled the civil war in Sudan, tells the story of the journey that took him to the refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya, and ultimately, to the United States.