National Basketball Association

To Deng, World Refugee Day about hope

Published Jun. 16, 2011 1:00 a.m. ET

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He could have been one of them. Surely Luol Deng knows this. Surely it drives him.

Surely it is why, of all days, he hopes fervently that today you will read this, understand what World Refugee Day is about and do something.

Do anything.

“You don’t have to be wealthy, to give all this chunk of money,” the Chicago Bulls basketball star said quietly. “There’s plenty of people who are capable of helping if people would just do something. That would make a difference.”

Deng knows as well as anyone that worldwide, millions of men and women suffer through life without a home — refugees cast aside from normalcy, their worlds replaced by the threat of hunger, murder, rape and struggle.

It’s why the United Nations Refugee Agency marks June 20 of every year as a day to remember the world’s refugees: to contemplate the power of hope; to not look blankly away from the world as it is; to ask others to care enough to do something about it.

This is the 60th anniversary of that day, and to mark it the agency is asking that people “do one thing.”

For Deng, the calling to care is lodged in his own personal history.

“I was a refugee,” he said. “I still consider myself a refugee.”

When the 26-year-old small forward was 5-years-old, his family looked around and saw the coming hell that would descend on southern Sudan. Gunfire outside shook their thoughts as they huddled in their home with a choice.

Stay and test fate.

Or leave — becomes refugees — and guarantee by going that war would not ravage them as well.

“My dad decided that it would be safer for us to leave the country and live somewhere else,” Deng said. “It was a tough decision for him to leave home. He wanted his kids to grow up in the country he grew up in, the country he loved best. But there was no peace.”

So they left, first to Egypt, where they spent five years, and then on to London. Deng grew up, learned to play basketball, became an NBA player, earned riches and fame in a contract worth up to $80 million . . . and remembered.

Remembered what it was to be a refugee.

Remembered the Lost Boys of his southern Sudan — those who were forced to wander this earth alone — and the very real fact he could have been one of them.

Remembered that there would come a time when he could do something about it.

“Anything could have happened,” he said.

So last summer, now able to lend his name and wealth to a cause he cares about deeply, Deng returned to his lost home. He went first to Kakuma, a refugee camp in Kenya full of 70,000 people who speak to a pressing and real need for help. Then he went to his former village, Aweil, in southern Sudan.

There were ghosts there, reminders of the past, of what could have been and what going forward must be done: that people, like him and like you, must care.

“He wasn’t a Lost Boy, but he definitely very easily could have been,” said Line Pedersen, a UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) staffer who accompanied Deng on the trip. “So it was quite an emotional experience to go back and meet boys his age who are living in Kakuma refugee camp, really realizing how lucky he’s been in his life not to be one of those.”

Deng cannot remember when his family fled, memories lost to time and childhood. He was too young. All he knows is that returning had a certain power. There was a level of depth to the authenticity of the plight of those who toil as refuges that spoke both to his past and his hopes for the future.

“My commitment has always been there, but going to Kakuma just motivated me more,” he said. “Realizing what they go through every day. Not even close to what we complain about over here. It helped me, when things are rough, just realize there are people out there who have it way tougher than you.

“Not even close.”

And so Luol Deng, the boy who escaped the horrors of his homeland and found a life as a famous athlete a world away, would like something from you.

He wants you to care. To give a dollar or a thousand. Whatever it is, whatever you can, he hopes you’ll offer on behalf of men, women and children who have been cast away from all they know.

On behalf of men, women and children hoping that somewhere in the world waits a stranger who will take enough time to write a check and make a difference.

He hopes you’ll go to UNHCR’s website, learn more and give: www.unhcr.org

“Just even a dollar would make a difference,” he said.

A month ago, a few hours before the Chicago Bulls were eliminated from the NBA playoffs by LeBron James and the Miami Heat, Deng took a moment to talk.

He stood in the bowels of the United Center, the arena in which his team would lose, and spoke about how very much a little help can shape a life. About how the world, if it learns enough, can care enough, too.

He promised he would do all he could to help — starting with trying to get you to care, too.

“I care,” he said. “I really care. I just feel like I can make a difference. People just need to know more about what’s going on out there.”

You can follow Bill Reiter on Twitter.

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