2022 Person of the Year Award

Abraham Awolich comes from South Sudan Lakes State, Awerial County. In 1989, like many South Sudanese, Awolich became a refugee in Ethiopia where he joined the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) at roughly the age of 10. Following the collapse of the Derge Regime in Ethiopia in 1991, Awolich returned to South Sudan and was displaced again, becoming a refugee for the second time in 1992, this time in Kakuma, Kenya. Awolich lived in Kakuma for roughly 9 years until he went through a resettlement program to the United States in 2001 as one of the lost boys of Sudan. 

Awolich resettled in Burlington, Vermont where he attended the Community College of Vermont (CCV) and later the University of Vermont, graduating in December 2005 with a BA in Anthropology and minor in Business Administration.  Awolich was a MacNair Scholar 2004 Cohort. At graduation, Awolich was awarded the William A. Haviland Medal for outstanding achievement in Anthropology. In 2006, he won the Samuel Huntington Public Service Award for his commitment to public service and was granted $10,000. In 2006, Awolich co-founded the New Sudan Education Initiative, an organization that raised funds to support education in Southern Sudan. Awolich became an American citizen in 2006. 

In June 2008, Awolich was admitted to the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University for a master’s degree in public administration and graduated in 2009 with an MPA. After graduation, Awolich co-founded the Sudan Development Foundation, an organization providing support to villages in South Sudan to rebuild. 

After voting in the Southern Sudan Referendum for independence in January 2011, Awolich returned to South Sudan in May 2011 as a consultant for the government of Southern Sudan, participating in a Comprehensive Evaluation of the government. After the South Sudan Declaration of Independence, Awolich and his colleagues cofounded the Sudd Institute, with seed funding from the United States Insitute of Peace, and became its founding administrator. Awolich became the Managing Director of the Sudd Institute in 2019 and is also a senior researcher and policy analyst. 

In January 2021, Awolich was appointed as a Deputy Rapporteur for the Upper Nile Conference. He was also the Deputy Coordinator of the South Sudan National Dialogue Steering Committee Secretariat. Awolich served as a member of the Board of Directors at the National Revenue Authority of South Sudan from 2018-2019. Awolich also served as a head of government delegation Secretariat to the Rome Peace Talks. 

On the 30th of July 2021, Awolich and three other colleagues signed the Declaration of the Founding of the People’s Coalition for Civil Action (PCAA), a pro-democracy civil rights movement. The declaration and the organization’s mission prompted the government to seek his arrest or his life. Awolich left South Sudan in October 2021 and returned to the United States where he is currently running an advocacy campaign.