Akuja de Garang

Akuja Mading de Garang MBE (born 1970s) is a British South Sudanese educator. She left Sudan during the civil war and after moving to Egypt she was offered political asylum and citizenship in the UK. After studying in London she returned to South Sudan to lead a $70m programme to improve the education of girls in her home country.

Life Garang was born in Juba in 1975. Her mother decided that her children needed to leave the country. Her father had died of cancer so they went temporarily to the capital of Sudan, Khartoum. There was prejudice against people from southern Sudan and her mother had a stroke, so they went to Egypt. They had relatives in the UK so they made an application to join them. Meanwhile, it was her education that allowed her to get office work to keep the family.

Her studies took her to London and the School of Oriental and African Studies where she obtained a 2002 degree in African Studies and a 2003 master's degree, in Violence, Conflict and Development. She intended to return to South Sudan with her new qualifications and she re-entered the country of her birth in 2004. Garang was identified as being pivotal in GESS's assistance to the girls in South Sudan. Nobody from South Sudan had been awarded an MBE before. The paper notes that the vast majority of girls in South Sudan are illiterate. She led the send phase of the GESS programme with cost $70m over fiver years scheduled to complete in March 2024.