From Window magazine: "Survivor's Story"

Ater Malath wants you to know his story.

Malath, a 35-year-old business student at Western Washington University, was born in South Sudan, which gained independence in July after a civil war that spanned more than two decades, killed 2 million, and displaced more than 4 million people like him.

Malath is full of vivid stories. But if you ran into him between classes in Parks Hall, he might be quiet at first. Malath has lived in the U.S. for 16 years and has citizenship, but English is his third language; he speaks articulately but simply. He is quick with a smile that seems effortless and a laugh that comes easily – gestures that do the talking when words fail.

Malath wants to meet you and tell you about his life – about his war-torn childhood, about the refugee camps and slums, about the deliverance of emigrating to the U.S. followed by the drudgery of low-wage jobs, and ultimately about how his hunger for a college education led him to Western. And he wants to tell you how he yearns to invest his degree in economic development in South Sudan.

He wants you to know that he, like South Sudan, the world’s newest country, has a future worth getting inspired about.

Read the rest of this story online on the website for Window magazine.