The Undying Hope School of Leadership is a planned four-year boarding school for girls and boys, on land communities gifted in Aweil and Wau, South Sudan. It is not open. There is no enrollment yet. What stands today is the land, fruit trees, water work, and the scholarships and teacher training already underway.
What it will be
We describe the school in these words. This four-year boarding school program for girls and boys will weave together a traditional secondary education with leadership and entrepreneurship training. This school will be an opportunity to build relationships across communities, undermining the tribalism that destroys peace in South Sudan and cultivating leaders that have a vision of a brighter future.
Students would study:
- The South Sudanese secondary curriculum used in other high schools
- Math, science, the liberal arts, and other core disciplines
- Leadership, health, financial literacy, and spiritual formation
Theil’s story names four styles of leadership for the wider work around the school: servant-based, transformational, financial, and organizational. An administrative and coordination office in Juba is part of the same plan. That office would build relationships with local government, businesses, and communities, oversee the school, and adapt leadership training for businesses, government, and other organizations.
Why a boarding school
Theil’s reason is the three years he spent at Managil High School, south of Khartoum, living and studying with students from many tribes. He wants girls and boys studying at the Undying Hope School of Leadership in Aweil and Wau to have that same chance: one table, one timetable, many communities. The lesson he names is that out of the many tribes and backgrounds, there was only one tribe called South Sudan.
The rest of that story, including the red sky over Aweil and the meaning of his name, is on Our Story.
Where
Community members in Aweil and in Wau gifted construction and farming land. We have been generously gifted a beautiful piece of land in Aweil, South Sudan, to build a four-year boarding school. Theil’s story places the first buildings he hopes for, a school, a community center, and a church, in his hometown, Aweil.
There are two properties in Aweil. One, in the Maper area, has a pond and has flooded. The other, in the Kuom region, is larger. In December 2025, Theil wrote that seasonal flooding had damaged the fruit trees on one property, while the 129 trees on the other property were growing beautifully. Josephine Mangu coordinates from Juba, working with local government and communities.
What is already happening
In March 2022, Theil wrote that, for strategic reasons, Undying Hope would not build schools before 2024. Between that letter and construction, he said, the work would be boreholes, water towers, trees, scholarships, and training. The campus did not open on that calendar. In May 2025, his wife, Aluel, co-founder, reported from Aweil that leaders and the community were grateful for the vision to build a school, a community center, and a church “when the time is right.”
How to help
A gift supports what is real now: scholarships, teacher training, virtual health teaching, and care of the land, the trees, and the water the future school will need. You can give on the donate page, by Donorbox, PayPal or by check. Undying Hope International is a 501(c)(3) organization, EIN 84-4095313.
If you can teach, mentor a law graduate, or help the virtual health work, write to info@undyinghope.org. Theil has asked skilled people to do exactly that.
Field letters on the trees and the water are here: Derrakoon Tree and the 2025 sustainability letter.