Gabriel Bol Deng, Koor Garang and Garang Mayuol were born in Akon in South Sudan. They were forced to flee in 1987, as young children, when militiamen led violent attacks on their villages. They crossed Southern Sudan on foot, surviving disease and paralyzing hunger to reach safety in a refugee camp in Ethiopia and then Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya. They came to the US in 2001 as part of a large number of Southern Sudanese young men nicknamed "Lost Boys".

In May-July 2007, accompanied by filmmaker Jen Marlowe and journalist David Morse, Gabriel Bol, Koor and Garang returned to Sudan in search of their families and to help their community with the education and skills they have gained in Kakuma refugee camp and in the US.

Garang was the first to return to his village and found his mother whom he hadn't seen in twenty years. Koor reunited with both of his parents as well and heard about their struggle to survive in the bush as members of the rebel army. Gabriel Bol's homecoming was marked with grief as well as joy. He learned that both his parents had died shortly after he fled as a ten-year old boy. Elders informed him there was a special tree in the village. Gabriel Bol was born on the spot marked by the tree and his placenta is buried there. His mother is buried there as well.

Gabriel Bol, who graduated college the day before the trip with a degree in education, took the first steps towards starting a school, assessing the educational needs of the local community and securing their support. Koor, who has a nursing certificate, brought treated mosquito nets and medical supplies to a clinic which is currently being built. The entire journey, however, was punctuated with guilt at not being able to do enough. Broad as Koor's smile was as he stepped over a bull into the entrance of his village, he was not only counting the celebrating throngs that gathered to greet the return of their lost son - he was also assessing how inadequate was the number of mosquito nets he had brought.

Seeking answers to difficult questions about the conditions they found and the status of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement led the three young men to Kuajok, the state capital, and Juba, the seat of the newly formed government of South Sudan, where they spoke with ministers of health and education as well as the Secretary General of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement and the President of South Sudan.

They also returned to Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya where they had lived for nine years, sitting on the ruins of what used to be their hut, teaching classes at their former school, and talking to refugees about whether or not they intend to return home to Sudan.

Along the way, the young men assessed the hopes, dreams and fears of the Southern Sudanese people nearly three years after the signing of the CPA. They explored the connections between the conflict in South Sudan to conflicts in other parts of Sudan, including Darfur, probing the larger questions of identity and ethnicity in Sudan.

"Rebuilding Hope" documents Gabriel Bol, Koor and Garang in their quest to find surviving family-members and rediscover and contribute to their homeland; it also sheds light on what the future holds for South Sudan in its struggle for peace, development and stability.