Meet Our Founder

Peter Garang Deng was born in South Sudan and grew up in Bor Village, Sudan until he was 12 years old. He was orphaned at an early age, his mother died without warning and his beloved father had passed away when he was five. He lived with his two sisters and his aunts. Things were good for a while but he still missed the care that only his parents could offer him had they lived. His sisters got married, leaving him to remain under the care of relatives and his life became a nightmare. His life at that time was no different than the life of a homeless person. Having both parents gone, his basic childhood needs went unmet and he was neglected. To turn his life around, he sat down one morning on the street curb thinking about where his life was going while watching the kids who have parents going to the local school Konberk, just 10 minutes away from his uncle home.

While sitting watching these kids with big smiling faces as if they own the whole world, he made a decision that he would go to school so that he too could have a good life in the future. He then went to school in Konberk and then in New Cush. As a teenager, he moved to Kenya where he was given a name he had never dreamed about before; “Refugee.” he continued his studies in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. In the Refugee, Camp life was neither bad nor good. There was a food shortage in this Camp and so he’d usually end up spending some days with no food, which led to a serious stomach ulcer that affected him for three years. Thank God he went to Eldoret, a great town in Kenya where he received treatment. While he was in the Refugee Camp in Kenya he went through the Teachers Training Course and became an Adult Education Teacher, in 2005-2006. In 2006 Mr. Peter was lucky indeed to meet an open heart young man by name Vicrum Puri, who then sponsored him to go to college in Kenya. Peter left teaching to further his education in Eldoret Town, one of the most beautiful towns in Kenya. Before the sun-kissed the hill, he left Kenya to come to the USA. After two years, in the US working on his dream, Mr. Peter recalled his life as an orphan, he then founded his 501(c)3 nonprofit organizationwhile he was still a student at Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont.

Mr. Peter became an orphan fully at age five, and since then he had been struggling for a better life for himself. At that time, he had a dream that he would one day bring changes to his people who are desperately in need of help. Having experienced the tough life of being an orphan has encouraged him to form Deng Opportunities Foundation, Inc. to raise money and help the orphaned children of Jonglei. “Twenty years ago this was about me but what I say or do today with DOF is not about me it is about the orphans who are going through what I went through.” Said, Peter. Peter graduated from Champlain College with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business with a concentration in Accounting, Finance, and Marketing and an MSA, MBA from Plymouth State University.


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