Benjamin

One of the things we’re focused on as a charity is to employ local South Sudanese whenever possible – whether it’s our drilling team or our translators, we want to ensure that we’re truly helping the communities we work for become self-sustainable. Naturally, we tend to work closely with our regular South Sudanese team, and heading back to South Sudan to see them and catch up is always something that our Canadian field team gets excited about.

As our videographer Brian Ceci told us, Benjamin, our go-to translator, is one of the people the whole team most looks forward to seeing.

“Benjamin is special because he just has this aura about him,” Brian explained. “He’s very down to earth, relaxed and you just immediately like him.”

Benjamin has worked with us as a translator for some time now, acting as a bridge between the communities we help and the rest of our team.

“When he translates, even when he knows the answer, he’ll ask the question to the person Treana is directing her question to instead of just answering Treana’s question without a response,” Brian said.

Another interesting thing about Benjamin: unlike most South Sudanese men who traditionally marry as a power exchange for a dowry, Benjamin told Brian he’s waiting for the right woman. Definitely a rarity in this traditional culture!

Without local support like Benjamin, we wouldn’t have the trust and knowledge of the people that we do now.