Emmanuel Jal is nowadays a hip hop star who sings about what happened to him. He was born in Sudan and at the age of seven his mother was killed by soldiers. Then he decided to be one of the ten thousand children who went to Ethiopia because they had been told they would be educated there. But it was a totally lie and they were forced to fight in Second Sudanese Civil War.
Fortunately he was very lucky and he survived, but many of the children who were fighting along him did not. After the war he went to school in Kenya and he started a completely different life. Then he went to America to tell his story to the world through the messages conveyed in his music.
"Music is powerful. It is the only thing that can speak into your mind, your heart and your soul without your permission," he says. He feels the responsability to help kids who fight in war because he was once one of them. Approximately 250,000 children under the age of 18 are thought to be fighting in conflits around the world.
His album "WARchild" was the first lauched in America and it describes war and his desire of changing mentalities, specially the clear message that children have no place in wars.
He also participes in several campaigns of non-profit African's organizations, besides he has found a charity named Gua Africa. "Gua" means "peace" in Sudan's language. That organization is dedicated to educating children affected by war and poverty in sub-Saharan Africa.
