Beyond her dark, slender form and white teeth, Emmanuel Jal does not remember much about the mother that gave life to him in the Bahr el Ghazal region of Southern Sudan.

“I remember she used to sing a lot of mourning songs in the church,” said Jal. “As a child, it was like death, death, everyday.”

Songs lamenting the passing of playmates and hymns that ushered relatives off to sweet rest were Jal’s earliest musical memories.

But, now those songs of mourning have transmogrified into songs of peace and reconciliation as the life of Jal, an ex-child soldier, becomes the subject of the hip hop album and award-winning documentary film, War Child.

Directed by C. Karim Chrobog, War Child chronicles the life of Jal who at age 7 was fighting on the side of the rebel army in Sudan’s bloody civil war, yet now lives to tell the tale of his struggle through his unique style of hope-filled hip hop.

“There are a lot of films about Africa and its conflict areas. They present the film, but not a solution,” said Chrobog, who is half German and half Egyptian. “What attracted me to Emmanuel’s story was that it was an uplifting story because of his message, and it’s not about the outsider coming in and helping. ”

Jal, who was toting an AK-47 while his peers in other countries were adding fractions, knows more about the inside of this conflict region than anyone would ever hope to.

As a boy soldier, Jal was taught to be his brother’s keeper, but never to bear feelings or attachments for his fellow soldiers. They all had to remain callous for the harrowing events that would come.

By the time he was 13, he had become a veteran of two civil wars and had seen hundreds of his fellow child soldiers reduced to taking unspeakable measures as they struggled to survive on the killing fields of Southern Sudan.

One day, while in a place called Waat, he was pushed to this brink of survival.

“I was so hungry and was tempted to eat my friend who lay beside me or die. I prayed and ask God to give me something to eat,” said Jal. “That was what kept me. Emma found me there.”

That day, he was rescued by a British aid worker, Emma McCune, who smuggled him into Nairobi, Kenya and raised him as her own son.

Interspersing stories like this, live concerts, and rare footage of Jal as a seven year-old boy, War Child, attempts to paint a picture of faith and deliverance for Jal and thousands like him.

“We’re trying to make this film cater to a younger audience,” said Chrobog. “No one can say they’ve watched anything like this before. Because he’s a hip hop star, it makes it more accessible as a subject matter.”

Set to a bed of hard-hitting, reggae and hip hop baselines coupled with the power of Jal’s uplifting lyrics, War Child will take you on a journey from raw truth to palpable expectancy.

Since the film’s release in 2008, Jal and his supporters launched a foundation called Gua, meaning peace and power in Jal’s native tongue of “Nuer .”

“I am using myself to speak for those who cannot speak. The only thing I can do is create the awareness. My story may not change the whole world but if I encourage someone to invest in one child, then I have made a difference,” said Jal, whose foundation’s aim is to place talented child soldiers and refugees in Nairobi private schools and build a school in his Sudanese home village that will bear the name of his adoptive mother – The Emma Academy.

Until the money for Emma Academy is raised, Jal has said he will remain on a fast comprising one daily meal at 10 p.m.

“A lot of people find it weird about this one meal a day. But, all I can imagine is the pain that someone else has. If there are no schools being built, then we will die out,” he said.

Jal, who remembers very well the day he was lured away by the rebel army because they were told they would be going to school, believes “education is the only key to peace in [his] country.”

For more information on War Child and Gua Africa, visit www.warchildmovie.com.