South Sudanese teacher, who molded hundreds of refugee students, reunites with former pupil
Dr. James Alic Garang (Left) meets with his former primary teacher Ustaz Ariath Amol (Right) at the latter’s residence in Thongpiny suburb of Juba on May 17, 2025.
By Denis Ejulu
Growing up for many South Sudanese in the then southern Sudan was extremely challenging in the 1980’s, due to the devastating civil war that pitted the Sudanese government against the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) rebel group.
This meant millions of South Sudanese became refugees in neighboring Ethiopia and Kenya. Many of these refugees were cut off from essential services such as quality health, education and shelter.
Ustaz Ariath Amol, 65, is seen as a legend and guardian angel to many South Sudanese whom he helped mentor and mold in refugee camps in Gambela region and Kakuma in the late 1980’s and throughout the 1990’s.
The soft spoken veteran teacher on May 17, 2025 reunited with Dr. James Alic Garang, one of his pioneer students in a make shift structure in Thongpiny suburb of Juba, where he lives with a relative.
Amol, who taught Alic and his peers alphabet and mathematics fundamentals on the ground in Gambella and Kakuma refugee camps due to lack of chalk boards, text books and notebooks, says he is satisfied that some of his students have since grown to become successful intellectuals and influential persons in independent South Sudan.
“I am very happy with what I have achieved in life,” Amol told Juba Echo last week in Juba.
“When we taught these students, we used to tell them that they are the future of the country we are struggling to build,” he says.
Despite his old age, Amol is able to recall names of most students in his class at Torit primary school in Kakuma.
Amol who was born in Agok- Machar village of Aweil North County, Northern Bahr El Ghazal State, says he still has the energy and vigor for teaching despite suffering a fractured leg, which makes him walk with the support of a cane.
“I am very happy that the children I taught alphabets on the ground some of them have become ministers and others technocrats in the government. I feel proud of molding a generation that has gone on to become successful,” he says.
Some of his students include Peter Kuot, former undersecretary in the national ministry of roads and bridges and member of the political bureau of the ruling SPLM party.
Amol’s love for his students was demonstrated in 2003 when he left Nairobi for Kakuma to send off those who had received scholarships to study in the United States.
The famous “lost boys” who include James Alic Garang, were seen off by Amol who reminded them not to forget their roots upon reaching the U.S.
These students had endured extreme hardships from lack of food, shelter and studying under trees which became untenable especially during the rainy season.
Meanwhile, Alic expressed happiness upon reuniting with Amol after having last met him in 2006 in Aweil.
“In 1988 at Torit primary school, Ustaz Ariath Amol taught us the first English alphabet for the first time on the ground because at the time there were no text books, no notebooks and even the chalk board was not there,” Alic says.
The former Governor of the Bank of South Sudan who holds a PHD in Economics from the University of Massachusetts recalled that it takes considerable effort or will power for one to succeed in school.
Alic adds that Amol was one of the people who laid the foundation for him and many of his classmates to grasp simple alphabets and mathematical concepts at a young age.
“I was thinking that he is in Aweil but after being informed, that he was in Juba I decided to pay him a courtesy visit,” he says.
“In life we can be in one place and then we separate but because we are not mountains, we are bound to meet and when this happens the old memories are rekindled and when they are rekindled, you don’t refocus on the pain and the suffering you focus on the good,” Alic says.
