After fleeing war and abuse, Sudanese student graduates high school in Spokane and charts a brave course

Five years ago, Achan Akon made a difficult decision: It was time for the 14-year-old girl to report her mother to Child Protective Services.

Her mother was a fighter. A survivor who became a refugee from South Sudan’s brutal civil war and later won a complicated custody battle to keep her children.

But then her life began to unravel. She was drinking more and getting violent. Akon believed the mental and emotional stress of fleeing South Sudan and then fighting for custody exacerbated her mother’s alcoholism.

“I think a lot of her sacrifices led to her drinking,” Akon said.

She remembers one night in particular during her eighth-grade year. It was two weeks before Christmas break.

“I had a terrible beating from my mom,” she said. “I thought I would die.”

The prospect of two weeks at home with her mother was a nightmare. So she called CPS, which had already opened a case against the family. Shortly thereafter, she, along with her four other siblings, were placed in foster care.

During the course of the past five years Akon, now 19, has lived with three foster families and attended four high schools.

Despite those challenges, she earned her diploma on June 9 from the On Track Academy.

“I feel like I broke a family chain,” she said. “I did the impossible.”

And, remarkably, she’s started to make peace with her mother, who has stopped drinking as heavily.

“I’m pretty proud of her,” Akon said. “She’s not the mother I knew five years ago.”

Her three youngest siblings, all girls, have been reunited with their mother. That’s something Akon supported. She believes her mother deserved the chance to raise her daughters after being denied so many times.

Akon’s journey, in many ways, mirrors her mother’s own path.

“She left her own home,” Akon said. “And I left my own mother.”

Akon’s mother, Tereza Awan, was just 15 years old when she was married off in South Sudan for the price of 50 cows under Sudanese marriage customs. In short order, she had two children, both daughters. But the region was quickly becoming embroiled in civil war, and she decided to flee. That left her with a nearly impossible decision to make.

“When she was planning her escape, she couldn’t take both of us,” Akon said. “One of us would die.”

She chose Akon, who was 3 years old at the time, because she still needed to be breastfed. The elder sister stayed with her grandmother.

And then they started walking. Over the course of months, they walked hundreds of miles – the equivalent of traveling from the western end of Washington to the eastern end of Montana, she said.

That walk ended in Egypt, where they applied for asylum in the United States. During their trip, they met William Akon, a fellow refugee. Tereza Awan and William Akon married. Once they arrived in Spokane, they split.

William Akon filed for custody of Achan. Ultimately, the court ruled he had no parental rights.

Despite her mother’s shortcomings, Achan Akon is grateful she had the nerve and drive to escape Sudan, and fight for custody of her children.

“I know if I was back home, I would have been married off,” she said, adding, “I refuse to get married off.”

Aly Peone, her case manager, has been consistently impressed by the young woman’s drive and determination. Now, she’s helping her move from transitional living into a fully independent life.

From the very beginning, Akon has pushed for more freedom, Peone said. She wants to get out of the system.

“Yup, she wants the freedom,” Peone said. “And she has all the means. This girl is not just smart, she’s street smart.”

While attending her graduation ceremony, Peone said she was struck by the woman’s fortitude and the barriers she’s overcome.

“It was amazing to see someone with every reason to quit, and she didn’t quit,” Peone said.

Scott Sorenson, Akon’s teacher at the On Track Academy, echoed Peone. Sorenson taught her for a year, and while her living situations kept changing, her focus was steady.

“Achan would have every excuse to throw the towel in, and milk the system,” he said.

But she didn’t.

Now, on the verge of full independence, Akon plans to enroll at Spokane Community College. And she wants to gain American citizenship. Eventually she hopes to become a lawyer, assisting immigrants and refugees.

And she wants to visit South Sudan someday, where her biological father, older sister and other relatives live. She still speaks her native language and relates to her ethnic group, the Dinka people.

The cultural connection gives her strength, Akon said.

“You die standing,” Akon said of the Dinkas. “You don’t lay down.”

She added, “At the end of the day we fight for our own self-respect, no matter who we have to go against.”