Aduei Riak

A graduate of Brandeis University and a paralegal for the Boston law firm, Ropes & Gray, Aduei Riak is hardly your average 24 year old.

Riak came to the United States in 1999 as one of over 4,000 Sudanese refugee children who were relocated in cities across the U.S.  Not able to speak much English, she taught herself the language by watching children’s shows such as Sesame Street.

At the age of three, Riak began traveling from country to country across Africa in search of refuge from the civil war that started in her homeland a year before she was born.  In 1987, along with her mother and five siblings, Riak first fled to Ethiopia when the civil war led to a mass exodus from her home country.  She lived with her family in a refugee camp for the next several years until they were separated and forced out during a political uprising. 

At eight years old, Riak began walking to Kenya with a huge crowd of people, made up of mostly orphan children.  She and the others finally found refuge in the Kakuma refugee camp where Riak stayed until she was 16 years old.  She was then told she was going to be relocated to the United States as part of a resettlement program. 

Lutheran Social Services arranged for her to stay in Boston, where over the next three years she lived with three foster families. 

“I’ve seen a lot of things that a person my age should not have been exposed to,” says Riak, of her past.  Now well on her way to a bright future, Riak is not only a survivor, but also a true example of an extraordinary woman.