Chol B Ayuen

Ms Riak Deng is a co-founder of iHOPE charity. Riak spent most of her early young age as an Internally Displaced Person (IDP) until 1998 when she briefly got resettled as a refugee at Kakuma in North Eastern Kenya.

Riak then moved to Khartoum to join her father who was separated from the family when she was four.  While in Khartoum and having seen how horrible life was, not only for the IDPs but also across Sudan, Riak decided to study Community Studies and Rural Development as a way to help the disadvantaged people. She graduated with an advance diploma at the University of Juba in 2008.

As a student, Ms Deng Would find time to work for the IDPs as a teacher, a community organiser and as an activist for domestic non-violence within the IDPs’ camps.

In 2009, Riak got married and moved to Kenya.  She migrated to Australia to join her husband in 2011. Riak now lives in Darwin in the Northern Territory. Like Deng Bul, Riak strongly believes in community empowerment through education. To make sure that she never veered off her vision, she is now studying Diploma of Early Childhood and Childcare. She believes that education can bring a positive change to South Sudanese people. Riak brings to iHOPE widows’ empowerment a creative and a strong leadership ability.