Photo: Sophia Jones-Mwangi/IRC
AWEIL, South Sudan
As South Sudan celebrates its second Independence Day on July 9, one young father hopes for a brighter future for his family even as he struggles with the realization that freedom isn’t enough without economic independence.
Mading Matith and his wife, Ajak Dit Bol, met and married when they were teenagers minding their families’ cattle near Rumbek, a town that would become part of South Sudan’s Lakes State when the country celebrated its independence in 2011. As did many young men during Sudan’s long civil conflict, Mading left his war-ravaged community, and his new wife, and headed north to Khartoum, looking for work.