John Jal Dak

John did not come to this work from the outside. In June 2016, John Jal Dak founded the Youth Social Advocacy Team as a Facebook platform amplifying refugee youth voices, and on 31st July 2017 registered it as a Community-Based Organisation under Arua District, Reg. No. 503/360. A South Sudanese refugee, John built YSAT not as a response to a funding opportunity, but from direct, lived experience of displacement, tribal violence, and the wide gap between international aid and the communities it claimed to reach.

Jacob Nhail Bol and Amuna Vivian joined late 2017, months after YSAT was already operational. With over ten years of experience in humanitarian and emergency response, John is an award-winning practitioner and public speaker, named Best Humanitarian of the Year in South Sudan by the Junub Talent Awards across two consecutive cycles, and a Pico Grant Award winner by the International Development Innovation Network (IDIN).

Under his leadership, YSAT has grown from three founders with no formal structure to a registered regional NGO with 83 staff, five integrated programme pillars, an ICT Innovation Hub, and active operations in Uganda and South Sudan. Since 2017, YSAT has directly reached over 100,000 individuals, with a combined direct and indirect reach of more than 699,000 people. In 2025 alone, YSAT served 28,267 people through education, food security, environmental restoration, protection, and technology programmes.

Jal led YSAT to establish its own permanent headquarters inside Rhino Camp Refugee Settlement, a building refugee-owned and refugee-led, representing something rarely seen in humanitarian response: institutional rootedness inside the community itself.

John carries YSAT's mission into global policy spaces. He serves as a UNHCR Global Advisor to the task team on meaningful partnerships with displaced-led organisations, and as Co-Chair of the Charter for Change Working Group on the Localisation of Humanitarian Aid. He was elected as International Steering Group Representative for Eastern and Southern Africa at the United Network of Young Peacebuilders (UNOY), headquartered in The Hague.

John's contributions extend into applied research. He served as a Research Assistant on a UNHCR study on the impact of streetlights in refugee settlements in Northern Uganda, a London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine study on challenges facing displaced healthcare workers, and a UNOY study on the role of youth in peace and security in the Borderlands of the Great Lakes Region.

He continues to speak at international forums advocating for access to quality education and dignified, fulfilling livelihoods for displaced youth — representing a generation of leaders who do not wait for change to arrive from outside, but build it themselves, from within the settlements where they live.