Born into the Second Sudanese Civil War, Garang Dut has known struggle from the beginning.
"Because of that, we had to move when I was a baby to Ethiopia," he tells SBS News.
"After we moved to Ethiopia, there was another war there, with the Ethiopian government being toppled at the time, so a large population of South Sudanese who had been forced out by war had to come back into a warzone."
Garang and his family then made their way to the Sudanese-Kenyan border, on foot. He was still very young, being carried by his mother much of the way.
“People were moving in large masses, sleeping in open air and under attack occasionally with aerial bombardment, wild animals.”
The attacks, he says, were carried out by Sudanese forces trying to prevent South Sudan’s breakaway.
Once at the border town of Lokichogio, Garang and his family could claim refugee status and receive aid from humanitarian agencies in the area.
Garang (middle, leaning over) as a child. Source: SBS
They were transported to the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, “which was an open desert, with a lot of dust, not a lot of trees. It didn’t look like it rained much, so it was very difficult for people to start their lives,” he says.
There was a heavy dependence on the humanitarian agencies for food, shelter and drinking water.
"And that's where I eventually started my schooling, pretty much open-air classrooms, writing in dirt.”
He wouldn't know it, but it was here, sitting under a tree in the Kenyan desert, where a life-altering affiliation with education would begin.
All his class notes were originally scrawled in the sand, blown away every night by the winds. Even when Garang was finally given paper to write on, he still had to share it with two other students because supplies were scant.
Garang and his family had very little. But what they’d gained was a sort of rare stability in a troubled region.
“Having that uniformity of sort, provided there is tranquillity, was enough basis for happiness even when there wasn’t much to be happy about relative to the rest of the world. So I was contented with the environment and able to work and strive under those conditions, even when there wasn’t actually much to excel from.”
A resilient and humble young man who was hungry to learn began to emerge, but Garang was also being moulded by the realities of life inside Kakuma. He saw many refugees die from preventable diseases and witnessed how easily healthcare systems can break down when neglected or mismanaged.
“There was no health system, things such as clean running water, immunisation programs, shelters, adequate nutrition. Basic things that people actually need to stay healthy.”
He would live in the camp for 12 years, with another five years spent in other refugee settlements.
A new start
Garang and his family had longed for a better life, but it took years for it to come to fruition. An international office for migration was eventually set up in the camp and the Australian government agreed to resettle some of Kakuma’s residents on humanitarian visas.
In 2004, Garang, his mother and three siblings were finally accepted into the refugee resettlement program and migrated to Melbourne the following year.
"I feel it was the date when a lot of opportunities opened up," he says with a smile. “I resettled in Australia at the Year 10 level and so it was transformative in the sense that I had wanted to study medicine but this just wouldn’t have been possible if I’d stayed in Africa.”
A new country, a new school, and eventually university, but the traumas of his past not forgotten, Garang wanted to make the world a better place. And the way to do that, he decided, was through medicine.
Dr Garang Dut with his family. Source: General Sir John Monash Foundation
“November 9, 2009, I get this email from Garang M. Dut,” recalls Rob Moodie, professor of public health at the University of Melbourne.
“And he says, ‘look I’m a second-year bio-med student at Monash University. I don’t know anybody here. I’m really keen on doing medicine. I know you’ve worked in Sudan. Could we possibly meet?’”
“I was just really impressed with a young kid doing that. He’d only been in Australia for three or four years by that time,” Professor Moodie says.
The pair met several times for coffee and corresponded over email. The following year, Garang was accepted to study medicine.
"He really has overcome a lot of hardship and has amazing amounts of determination,” Professor Moodie says. “Sometimes he would actually stay [on campus at university] at night because he didn’t have a computer at home.”
Dr Garang Dut receiving a scholorship. Source: General Sir John Monash Foundation
Garang then blossomed, completing a bachelor of biomedical science and then a doctor of medicine.
Search his name on YouTube and the first result shows him taking part in a debate at the prestigious Oxford Union Society, attached to the eponymous university, where he earned an MBA, followed by a master of public health at Harvard University in the United States.
That knowledge and passion is now being put to use back in Australia.
Garang’s early work focused on immunising refugee communities against hepatitis B and improving access to care for Indigenous Australians.
Now, he’s turned his sights to big picture thinking and problem-solving.
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“I joined the [Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet] and this is part of the reason I’ve moved to Canberra, to focus on big picture issues and be able to influence policy at a higher level so that some of the perspectives I’ve learned and experienced growing up – not only from medical school – can come to bear on how healthcare systems are delivered in Australia,” he says.
“We’re talking about setting up society, governance and how that impacts people’s lives. Having first-hand experience in refugee camps, I’m able to see through the full spectrum of what a health care system actually is, while my training and education helps me understand the levers needed to drive change in society."
"This is why I’ve gone from clinical practice to wanting to be involved in the policy process.”
Garang wants to ensure the voices of ordinary people – particularly those who are marginalised – are heard in the policy process.
“I’ve experienced some of the things they’ve experienced and so I approach the policymaking process and advocacy with an understanding of where they’re coming from and how oftentimes these voices don’t bear on policy processes.”
It's a rare and welcome voice in the halls of power.
Correction: This article has been updated to specify Dr Garang Dut grew up in South Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya before coming to Australia.
