Main Chick Monday: Nykhor Paul

Hey Hey!

IT IS MONDAY!

I am very excited to talk about this Powerful Woman. However, I am nervous that I will not truly tell her story the way "it is meant to be told". I will say this though, My Dad went to visit some family recently and told me that one of my 9 year old cousins was insecure about her skin being "darker than most". This hurt me because I remember kids teasing me about my skin colour and I had to get over it without any role models like Lupita Nyong'o ; Akoul De Mabior; Atong Arjok etc.

Nykhor was born during second South Sudanese civil war which began due to religious disputes and inter-tribal violence. Nykhor describes her first refugee camp in Ethiopia a overcrowded; the food scarcity and very little communication to the world outside the camp.

However, her world did change and got opportunity to move to America to live with her Aunt, cousin and Uncle which had been arranged by the United Nations Refugee Agency( UNHCR). After two years living at her Uncle's home, she found herself in the foster care system. 

She spent a lot of her time play sports-such as volleyball and basketball. Eventually took it upon herself to learn English. It was here wheres she began her career in modeling because her English Second Language(ESL) teachers encouraged her to enter modeling contests and pageants.

After her decision to take up modelling as a full time job. She saw it as a platform to develop her voice and create change. In 2014, she brought together 15 South Sudanese Models throughout America who were mostly refugees and got them to talk about the war for a film that was created for the Tribeca film festival in New York. She wanted to shed a light on the 64 tribes and tell the world about the war. "My aim was to show that we are one people and that instead of fighting against different tribes, we must look at each other and see that we are having the same experiences. We need to form a union and a sisterhood,and show people in South Sudan that if we can become brothers and sisters outside, they can do it inside too", Nykhor said to ELLE.

Z.