Gabriel Akech Kwai uses his journey from Sudan to Kentucky to help and inspire friends in both places.

Kwai, a Louisville resident, was born in 1979 in Bor, Sudan, which is in the southern part of the country, he said.

He and his family lived in Bor until he was seven years old, when murmurs began about a civil war about to erupt in Sudan, Kwai said.

Kwai was separated from his family and left Bor after his father was murdered by the government of Khartoum, the capitol city of Northern Sudan, and civil war wrecked the country in 1987, he said.

After the turmoil in Sudan, he said he journeyed to Ethiopia with 33,000 other children who had lost their families to the war. These children became known as the “Lost Boys of Sudan.”

Next, the government of Ethiopia ordered the refugees to leave the country. So the lost boys started the walk to Kenya, Kwai said.

On their way to Kenya, Kwai and the lost boys were attacked by the Ethiopian militia. In one day, about 5,000 lost boys were killed, he said.

But Kwai survived and, in 1991, found safety in a camp in Kenya called Kakuma. He lived there for nine years and got his elementary and high school education, Kwai said.

“One day we were visited by a man who asked us about our future,” he said. “We told him that we wanted an education.”

He said the man brought him and some of the lost boys to the U.S.

Feeling excited and liberated, Kwai said he arrived in Kentucky in December 2001.

Kwai went to Murray State University, where he met his friend Jack Cobb, a part-time English faculty member at Western.

Cobb said his roommate changed the way he views life.

“Coming home to Kwai puts everything in perspective,” he said. “No matter how bad your day was, you can think about his life, and you realize what a real bad day is.”

Kwai graduated from Murray State in December 2007 and started a non-profit organization, Kwai said.

He began with the idea to educate women in Southern Sudan, and it evolved into the Women’s Educational Empowerment Project for Southern Sudan, he said.

Kwai said the literacy rate for women in Southern Sudan is about 12 percent.

He got a small group of students together from Murray State, including Cobb, to start WEEP, he said.

Kwai’s plan involves sponsoring young women and sending them to the best schools in surrounding African countries, Kwai said.

According to the WEEP Web site, the organization sponsors about 10 girls.

He said he moved to Louisville in May 2008.

“I found it very hard to get a career set up in Louisville,” Kwai said.

Kwai began working part time for Home Depot after moving, and eventually found a full-time job, he said. But he was let go from the full-time job in January.

He said he’s training for a job at Republic Bank in Louisville, where he was hired two weeks ago.

“I pray everyday and I hope that things keep going well and stay how they are now because this is my dream and I am very happy,” Kwai said.