Lost boy finds gratitude award

A SUDANESE man has won Victorian Trainee of the Year for his work helping Greater Dandenong’s young people.
Matter Machar completed a Certificate 4 in Youth Services and Protective Care before undertaking a traineeship at the City of Greater Dandenong council’s Youth Services department.
Mr Machar is one of the Lost Boys of Sudan, a name given to thousands of displaced Sudanese children left homeless after the second Sudanese civil war in the early 1990s.
After being given refuge in Australia, Mr Machar has strived to give himself a brighter future, and using part of the $10,000 prize he now plans to visit his mother in Sudan in December.