From Kakuma to EP: Refugee and activist Mary Maker shares her story with CMS students

“I want them to always understand there is a world outside themselves; that the more you give to the community, the more you become your best self,” said Mary Maker, a South Sudanese refugee, speaker, activist and philanthropist, about what she hoped eighth grade students at Central Middle School took away when she spoke to them in the school’s Performing Arts Center on Monday, Dec. 2.

This semester, the students have been reading A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea by Melissa Fleming and When Stars are Scattered by Omar Mohamed and Victoria Jamieson – two nonfiction books about refugees and the adversities they have faced. When English teacher Jack Moody heard that his colleagues wanted to have a speaker talk about their experience as a refugee with students, he suggested his friend, Maker, who also attended St. Olaf College in Northfield.

“I sent her a text, and she was super enthusiastic about the idea,” Moody said. “She loves speaking events, but she mostly only works with adults. So a younger audience was something that she was really excited about.”

Maker led the conversation with students by modeling a challenge she posed to them, to “put themselves out there, to let people see who they are, to invite people into their story,” by reciting a poem she wrote, “To Be a Child”:

I pray on the stars to open my mind,
Like a flower flourishing, releasing its beautiful scent.
May my inner child sprout, attracting all that is good.
In this spirit of growth, may my inner child keep its innocence.
May I grow to enrich those around me—
To see them, acknowledge them,
And invite them into my story.

She continued by recounting her backstory as a refugee. Her mother fled civil war in Sudan with Maker and her younger sister, who were no more than toddlers at the time. They eventually settled in the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya – one of the largest refugee camps in the world, with a population of nearly 300,000. There, Maker grew up with the odds stacked against her to make it out of the camp.

“You have to be an exceptional refugee to get a scholarship,” she explained. “You have to be the top student. But how do you win as a refugee when everything around you is literally meant to keep you in the camp, right? Well, if education was going to be that route for me to leave, then I had to get my grades up. I had to be the best.”

Despite disadvantages throughout her K-12 education, including overcrowded classrooms, underqualified teachers, and having to complete daily household chores before school due to her gender, Maker was one of two students from the Kakuma refugee camp to be accepted into the Bridge2Rwanda program. The 16-month program, according to its website, creates opportunities for students “to obtain a global education.” Motivated to avoid being sent back to the camp if she failed, Maker completed the program and earned a full-ride scholarship to St. Olaf.

“Where is Minnesota? I didn’t even know where that was,” Maker laughed. She was simply happy it was in America; that is, “until I realized the winter in Minnesota,” she said in disbelief. Her first thought? “The war didn't kill me and winter is going to finish me!”

But Maker quickly acclimated to life in Minnesota thanks to her host family and college friends showing her the ropes, from enjoying hotdish to going ice fishing. While studying at St. Olaf, she founded Elimisha Kakuma (“Educate Kakuma” in Swahili), a nonprofit that helps students in Kakuma refugee camp access higher education. Since graduating, Maker now resides in New York City and was appointed a goodwill ambassador with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in 2023. She still comes back to Minnesota to visit for the holidays.

The support she received every step of the way, from her refugee family in the camp to her host family in Minnesota, has ingrained in Maker a deep appreciation for and belief in the importance of community. It’s a message she threaded throughout her talk with the eighth graders at CMS.

“We forget how creating a sense of belonging from the early roots is really important,” she emphasized. “Think about it, a confident eighth grader that understands their community, that feels acknowledged in their community” will be set up in the future to “include others” in “college and the institutions they're going to work at.”

Maker felt she was able to relate to the students because when she was in eighth grade, she wished “the world understood” what she felt. “ And I wished the world knew that I can contribute, too. To feel like we can contribute to our society makes us become responsible young adults; it makes us grow into people that can contribute.”

It’s evident that students connected with Maker, too. They asked her questions ranging from “How old are you?” and “What’s your favorite movie?” to “What was the hardest part of living in the camp as a child?” and one of her favorites, “What were your moments of joy in the camp?”

“For me, it was always watching the stars in the camp, because the sky is way clearer,” Maker answered. “You could see the shadows of the trees casted on the ground from the light of the stars.”

Moody was glad his friend was able to make a genuine connection with the students and invite them into her story. “To have her come in and authentically share her story and her voice really enhanced the curriculum,” he noted. “And it really highlighted that these stories are real. These aren't just fictional texts that we are reading in class. These are real stories. These are real people and they are in our community. They're your friends. They're your family.”

Maker ended her presentation reading for the students another poem she wrote, “Borderline.” It concludes as follows:

Do you know me? Do you see me? Do you acknowledge me? Can you see me beyond the borderline?
Lift me higher, Above the whispers of forgotten tongues, Where my voice is my own, Not an echo of survival.
Guide me to a place where roots grow deep, Where my heritage is a bridge, not a burden. In this sanctuary, let me be whole, Not fractured by the lines that divide us.
Every step I take is heavy with history, Yet I dream of a future unbound, Where every language is a song, And every culture a dance we share.
Can you hear me? Can you feel my heart beating, In rhythm with the hope of a new dawn? Together, let us cross these borders, And find our way home.