Introducing Nhial Deng, the winner
of the $100,000 Chegg.org Global Student Prize 2023
24-year-old South Sudanese refugee Nhial Deng, has empowered over 20,000 refugees in the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya through peace building, education, and entrepreneurship programmes, as well as creating a safe space for young people to heal from their trauma.
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He was selected from almost 4,000 nominations and applications from 122 countries around the world. Nhial accepted his award in New York during UN General Assembly week.​
Nhial’s story is extraordinary. Until the age of 11, Nhial’s childhood was relatively peaceful, living in a village in the Gembel a region of western Ethiopia, where his family moved to from Ulang, South Sudan during the first Sudanese civil war. Here, he would go to school in the mornings and play in the river with other kids in the afternoons. His father owned a small radio and men from the neighbourhood would join him in the evenings to listen, analyse the news and discuss world affairs. Nhial imitated the news anchors, and this was his first inkling of becoming a journalist. However, one morning in 2010, this life vanished in the space of a few minutes. Gunshots announced the attack of a militia: Nhial had to flee as the village was burnt to the ground. Two weeks later, after a traumatic journey, walking hundreds of kilometres for days, alone and without family, he reached the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, which would become Nhial’s home for the next decade. However, the journey meant that he was separated from his mother and six siblings for 12 years–a crushing loss at such a young age
Nhial's Impact
In the refugee camp in 2017, he founded the Refugee Youth Peace Ambassadors initiative, working on peacebuilding, youth empowerment, and social entrepreneurship that offers workshops, mentoring sessions, sports activities, and community dialogues, impacting over 20,000 young people in Kakuma and recognized by organizations including the UN Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth. Crucially, it also acted as a safe space for young people to heal from their trauma.
In 2021, he created SheLeads Kakuma, a leadership, advocacy, and mentorship program for young girls and women to promote gender equality in several refugee camps, with help from a grant from global advocacy organization Women Deliver, connecting young refugee girls and women with female mentors worldwide.
When the COVID pandemic struck, Nhial set up a digital awareness campaign to tackle misinformation, focused on credible sources such as the World Health Organization and the Kenyan Ministry of Health. These efforts helped reach over 40,000 people in Kakuma and Kalobeyei with life-saving information about the virus.
Nhial continues to work on projects to assist life in the camp, such as the Kakuma Book Drive – a global student-led solidarity movement that aims to mobilize 10,000 textbooks and laptops for people to use. Nhial will allocate 50% of the prize money to the construction and sustainable operation of the Kakuma Leadership and Innovation Centre in the Kakuma refugee camp, where a library and innovation hub will be based to host all the books and tech support he is collecting.
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Nhial moved to Canada in 2021 to attend Huron University, Ontario, where he is currently studying global studies and communication on a full scholarship, with a study permit and refugee status.
The Global Student Prize
The Varkey Foundation partnered with Chegg.org to launch the Global Student Prize last year, a sister award to its $1 million Global Teacher Prize. It was established to create a powerful new platform that shines a light on the efforts of extraordinary students everywhere who, together, are reshaping our world for the better. The prize is open to all students who are at least 16 years old and enrolled in an academic institution or training and skills program. Part-time students as well as students enrolled in online courses are also eligible for the prize.
Last year’s winner was South Sudanese refugee Nhial Deng, who empowered refugees in the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya through peacebuilding, education, and entrepreneurship programs. The winner in 2022 was Ukrainian teenager Igor Klymenko, a student from Kyiv, Ukraine, who developed a mine-detecting drone. The first winner in 2021 was Jeremiah Thoronka, a student from Sierra Leone, who launched a start-up that transforms vibrations from vehicles and pedestrian footfall on roads into an electric current.
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