In the dusty outskirts of a refugee settlement near the South Sudanese border, the sound of laughter echoes from a building made of tarpaulin and scrap wood. Inside, 300 children sit shoulder to shoulder, writing their names in chalk on battered slates.
At the front of the room stands James Odong, a calm, soft-spoken 23-year-old in flip-flops and a faded shirt. What most of his students don’t know is that James once sat where they sit — orphaned, displaced, and nearly forgotten.
Today, he’s the one giving hope.
From child refugee to accidental teacher
James was only 10 when both his parents were killed during a militia raid in northern Uganda. He fled on foot with his younger sister, walking for days before reaching a refugee camp in neighbouring South Sudan.
“I didn’t understand what was happening. I just knew we had to keep moving,” he recalls.
“We slept under trees. We begged for food. For a long time, I didn’t think I would survive.”
Inside the camp, he was one of thousands of unaccompanied minors. A humanitarian worker handed him a notebook and a pencil — his first connection to learning in years. That single act, James says, “changed everything.”
‘They didn’t need another aid worker. They needed a teacher.’
After years of informal education through NGO programs, James was offered a scholarship by a small nonprofit to study teaching. He returned to the very camp he grew up in — not as a student, but as a teacher.
But he soon realised something: the camp’s official school was overcrowded, underfunded, and many children weren’t even on the enrollment list.
“They kept telling us to wait. Wait for more classrooms, more funding, more teachers. But these kids — they were growing up with nothing.”
So James took a risk. With salvaged materials and help from local volunteers, he built a school himself.
A school without walls, but full of purpose
The school — now known as Hope Tree Learning Centre — began under a single tree with 18 students. Today, it serves more than 300 children, from ages 5 to 14. They learn reading, writing, basic maths, hygiene, and even English.
There’s no electricity. No running water. The classrooms are exposed to rain, wind and dust.
But for many students, it’s the only place they’ve ever known where they feel safe, seen, and valued.
“I don’t have much,” James says. “But I have what I wish someone had given me earlier — belief.”
Fighting ignorance — and fatigue
James works 7 days a week. He teaches in the mornings, gathers supplies in the afternoons, and holds evening classes for older kids who work during the day. He does this without a salary.
“Sometimes I think I can’t do it anymore. But then I remember: if I stop, they lose everything.”
Donations come sporadically. Desks are handmade. Books are shared among three or four students. Some children walk several kilometres to attend class. And yet, the waiting list keeps growing.
‘Education is the only way out.’
James’s dream is simple: to turn the school into a permanent structure with trained staff, a feeding program, and solar panels. Not for recognition — but because he knows what education did for him.
“My parents were taken from me. War took my childhood. But education gave me my life back.”
He smiles as a group of kids recite the alphabet behind him.
“One day, one of them will come back here — and build something even better.”
