In his report to the United Nations, Benjamin Whitaker remarks, “Groups subject to extermination have a right to receive something more helpful than tears and condolences from the rest of the world.” This quote holds true for all peoples that are in dire need of assistance. Every person that goes to bed hungry and scared deserves more than someone’s sympathies, statuses, remarks on the Internet, and “likes”– they deserve direct, perceptible action. The people of northern Uganda deserve such action. They have been under siege from the conflict created by Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (I’m sure many of us liked his video). Kony creates his army from kidnapped children as they are easily obtained and manipulated. Instead of a promise for higher social status or the allure of money, Kony uses ritual beatings and forces the children to murder their own families in order to keep them under his influence. He uses native superstitions and a warped, hypocritical ideology about Christianity and Ugandan Nationalism while slaughtering his own people and destroying his own country. These children then grow up under Kony’s brutality and may even go on to inflict the same brutality they experienced onto other children. The war in Uganda has been described as a war fought by children on children.
Kony’s war resulted in a massive amount of displaced people: the annihilation of certain communities. Even when freed from Kony’s wrath, the people of Uganda find no help upon returning home. The government gives them only rudimentary medical evaluations and sends them back to their home communities. The returnees are met with shame, isolation, and fear. Some members are forced to kill their own families before joining the LRA and this is an act seen as unforgivable by some in the group. Some girls may return sexually defiled, possibly with incurable, venereal diseases and some even pregnant. Their own home community may view them as tarnished and unfit wives and social spurn them. What is needed for this people is a complete overhaul, a fresh start.
The aim of Friends of Orphans (FRO) is exactly that – rehabilitating the community of Pader, Uganda. FRO doesn’t do just the bare minimum. Each individual that receives help from them can choose between seven vocational training courses: brick-laying, carpentry & furniture production, catering & baking, computing, motor vehicle mechanics, tailoring and welding & metal fabrication. They also receive group and one-on-one counseling and participate in peace building activities. Friends of Orphans works not only on a person-by-person basis, they work with the entire community to build new homes for former child soldiers.
There is a huge social stigma attached to the former child-soldiers when they return home, especially with ones that were forced to commit heinous acts against their own families or who may or not be returning with a venereal disease (approximately 12% of the population in Pader has HIV/AIDS). FRO educates the community as a whole in general sex education and about the reality of HIV/AIDS so they can better understand the people who are returning. FRO also wants these people to be secure later in life, without the need for outside assistance. The people of Pader, Uganda have received livestock with which they can sustain themselves and create a commercial profit. They also receive medical supplies such as supplements and de-worming tablets (especially children and mothers).
The global community must become more educated to help resolve this conflict. People around the world must actually contribute to a cause instead of continuing this generation’s trend of “slacktivism”. Just easing your own conscious will not do the world as a whole any good. Even the smallest of actual contributions can help someone in need. Just a simple donation of 5 to 10 dollars can help a person in a war-torn country get medical supplies or food. You can even help reward yourself with a nice bracelet (which will be sold throughout the campus). While the conflict may have eased in recent years, and some people may be okay with having problems be out of sight, and therefore out of mind, it cannot really end without direct action. Even when the physical conflict ends, the real work of rehabilitating and reintegrating will only be just beginning.
Tom List