MR. KOUL: Sure. To continue with my program, I really appreciate for having been invited to Secretary Powell's office. And as I have told you that I am a Sudanese. I came years 12 on fear of suffering. Actually, I am very, very thankful to the United States for having bringing us here into the United States, and I am very glad for the warm welcoming. I welcome that. And I am very, very, very glad for what Mr. Powell has did of having invited me to his office.

To continue with my program, I am one of the so-called "Lost Boys." And actually, I don't mind changing the name because I am once of the "Lost Boys" actually and I hope the name can actually see it being continued because I was lost but I was found because I have been actually brought back to life and actually I am very, very glad for that, and I actually keep on thanking the United States for doing that to me.

Actually, what I have to impress is actually my brothers that are left behind actually. I will be very glad if there is a way actually of bringing peace into our country so that we can live peacefully and with the other peoples of the world, actually, so that we can live peacefully and do our carry-ons, what we are actually to do.

Also, I am actually -- I hope actually I will get -- why I came here actually, I came here actually as a refugee and my aims of actually coming here is to get education. And if I actually get education, it will actually be a very nice chance of actually educating my brothers or my sisters as well left behind actually in Africa. And I am hoping this chance actually will be given to me as I was invited this morning to Secretary's office. I am very glad and actually keep on appreciating that.

Thank you very much. (Applause.)

SECRETARY POWELL: Thank you very much.

MR. KOUL: You are welcome.

SECRETARY POWELL: It was a great pleasure for me to host these wonderful young men on World Refugee Day, so designated by the United Nations. And they are representative of millions of people around the world who have been separated from their homes, separated from their loved ones and may never see their loved ones again, or people who are displaced within their countries. It is a worldwide tragedy that we have this consequence of war and other tragedies that cause people to be so displaced.

The United States is committed to doing everything we can to help people such as these to find new homes, find new families, find hope, find people who will believe in them, people who will love them again, and people who will give them a new start in life.

They don't like to be called "Lost Boys" because, as you heard so eloquently a moment ago, he is not lost anymore. They are now young men. They have been here just a few months. One has only been here eight days. Some are already working already. They're working so that they can get a start on getting their education and making something of themselves.

And we thought it would be appropriate not just to meet them in the suite up in the seventh floor of the State Department, but perhaps to walk down here to this beautiful spot in front of another refugee, the statue of another refugee who was world renowned and perhaps one of the most famous refugees who ever came to this country, Albert Einstein, in 1933, who was also escaping from oppression.

And we hope that these young men will find the same kind of hope and opportunity here in the United States that Albert Einstein and so many others did. My parents weren't called refugees; they were immigrants, but they found that same hope and inspiration here in this country which is forever reaching out its arms to take in those who are less fortunate, who have been lost somewhere along the way.

I can tell you just from the few moments I spent with these young men that not only are they no longer lost, but they will never be lost in the future, because now they believe in themselves, they believe in the people who have given them such opportunity.

I especially want to thank all the organizations that participate in this program that brings these young people here and gives them a new start and shows them how to accommodate themselves to a society so different from their own. And I know that even as they build their new lives, they will always be thinking of those they left behind in the Sudan, those who were not given that opportunity. And as you just heard eloquently, what he wants to do is find the means to go back and find other members of his family.

So it was a great pleasure for me to greet them here today. I can not begin to touch the eloquence of the young man who just spoke, so I will close by once again welcoming him to the State Department, welcoming them to America, looking forward to the contributions that they will make to this society, just as Albert Einstein did so many, many years ago.

And now I would like to turn them over to you so that you can hear their stories, which are far more moving and eloquent heard directly from them than anything I can paraphrase. Let's give a warm hand to these wonderful young men. (Applause.)