James Kiki

“On Point is my family away from home.”

James arrived in Syracuse 14 years ago as a refugee, one of the “Lost Boys” of South Sudan. He and 400 other young boys and girls fled his war-torn village in the early 1990s and found shelter in Kenya with a German nun, Sister Luise Agonia. “I remember she used to tell us that the best weapon is a pen and paper,” he said.

After three months in Syracuse, James was accepted at Onondaga Community College, which he attended fulltime while working 60 hours a week as a machine operator. After earning his associate degree in accounting, he elected to continue working, rather than going on for his Bachelor’s, so that he could support himself, his mother, and his siblings back in South Sudan.

In 2011, after learning about On Point, James decided to re-enroll in college and transferred to SUNY Oswego. On Point helped pay for summer classes and textbooks and provided rides to and from college. James is the first in his family to earn a college degree, and probably one of very few from his village of Lorema. After three months of volunteering in On Point’s accounting office, James now works for On Point fulltime as a general accountant. He remains actively involved in the Sudanese Community of Central New York.

This past year marked two milestones for James: He was able to buy his first car, and had his first child, a son, Malcolm, with his girlfriend Stella.