Emmanuel Jal: The war child fighting for a better future

Emmanuel Jal is fighting to give the youth of Sudan an education after his own childhood was stolen by war.




The Sudanese hip hop musician was a former child soldier of Sudan's brutal civil war that raged between 1983 and 2005. Unlike thousands of other "lost boys" he survived, but by the time he was 13 he had witnessed the unspeakable horrors of war and had seen hundreds of others like him perish.



Now around 30-years-old (he's not sure exactly when he was born) and with a critically acclaimed album and autobiography to his name, Jal is focused on building a school in Sudan to give children there the chances he never had.



It's a project that has been almost all consuming; Jal decided that he would forego breakfast and lunch each day until enough money was raised. The funds have not been as forthcoming as Jal had hoped

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/11/23/emmanuel.jal/index.html