In 2006, when I was 13, the war forced me to leave my village and my family. I still remember the uncertainty of that time. I traveled with a clan mate until we reached Kenya, where we were received by the UNHCR and taken to Kakuma Refugee Camp where I found safety.

I thought I’d be there for a few months. I ended up staying for 19 years.

Kakuma is a tough place. The sun is hot, and life is not easy due to scarce resources. But it’s also where I became a man. It’s where I finally got to go to school and where I learned that laughter can survive even in hard times. I made friends from all over Africa, and we all shared the same simple dream, a life of peace. That dream got me into peace-building work. For over five years, I sat with people from Congo, Somalia, Ethiopia… and we talked. We talked about the pain we’d left behind and the future we wanted to build. It taught me that peace isn’t a document signed by politicians. It’s something you build between people, every single day.

Somehow, that work led me to places I’d only ever seen on TV. I spoke at international forums about peace and climate change including the World Economic Forum Annual meeting and One Young World conference. People would call me an ‘ambassador’ or a ‘shaper,’ but inside, I was still just that boy from Kakuma, hoping my words would make a difference for the people I left behind. I did a couple of community empowerment from youth empowerment, food security and climate change but this is a discussion for another day.

In 2025, I moved to Canada. It’s cold! And it’s a strange feeling, starting over again at this point in my life. Everything is new. Sometimes I feel lonely, but mostly I feel… ready.

So, what do you do with all that life has given you? The grief, the hope, the lessons?

You build something.

That’s why I’ve started Ecozi. It feels small, very very small maybe. But for me I have to start somewhere, it’s not about the product. It’s about a value. It’s about taking care of the one home we all share. It’s the first, tangible step of a much bigger vision I have, a vision of communities that are sustainable, empowered, and at peace with their environment.

This is just the beginning. It’s messy and a little scary, like all new beginnings are. But it’s mine. It’s the next page in my story, and I’m writing it with the same stubborn hope that has carried me all this way.

I am Dak

My story is one of many homes, and it begins in South Sudan.