Barefoot Peace Walk - UN International Peace Day

On UN International Day of Peace, this Tuesday, walk for children, for the dispossessed, for peace. 

To mark the UN International Day of Peace on 21^st September, the International Refugee Trust (IRT) is holding a Barefoot Peace Walk in London to draw attention to a major humanitarian crisis taking place in Central East Africa in which 20-60,000 children have been abducted by the rebel group known as the  Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

 On that day, the charity is asking people to wear white and walk through central London to raise awareness of the grim reality affecting millions of people in Central East Africa in one of the world’s worst and most neglected humanitarian crises.

Millions of civilians have suffered over the past 24 years in the struggle between the LRA and the Ugandan government. The group originated in Northern Uganda but is now spread across the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic and South Sudan. The LRA is notorious for abducting children and forcing them to become soldiers and sexual slaves. The rebels target civilians, mutilating and killing on a horrific scale.

Campaigners are urging David Cameron’s coalition to help stop Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony, who has been abducting children to fight in his rebel army and rescue the children still in captivity. 

In support of the walk, author and comedian Jane Bussmann will perform her award-winning show ‘Bussmann’s Holiday’ (directed by Emmy winner Sally Phillips) at a special free event to be held at the Africa Centre from 7.30pm. 

A 20-year old former LRA abductee, Juliet, visited London this July with the charity War Child to share her experiences with school students, politicians and the media. Juliet hand-delivered a personal letter to Downing Street, urging the Prime Minister “to find a way to release girls and children who are still in the bush… this is an international problem and I ask you to take international leadership to stop this injustice."  An estimated 3,000 children are still held captive.

Regional governments are struggling to protect civilians and apprehend Kony and his top commanders. Campaigners are calling for the UK, which has strong ties to commonwealth nation Uganda and which contributes substantial aid to the region (£130m committed to the DRC), to demand value for money and stop Kony from destabilising the region. They urge Cameron's coalition to take a leading role in regional and international efforts to pursue peace and secure stability.

Barefoot Peace Walk participants will meet at 6pm next to St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square, tomorrow and leave at 6.30pm for a 45-minute walk through London past landmarks including the Houses of Parliament. People are encouraged to dress in white and to walk barefoot, but this is not compulsory. The walk finishes at the Africa Centre, 38 King Street, near Covent Garden, where the special evening event starts at 7.30pm. All activities are free to attend. IRT’s partners in Uganda and Sudan will take part in local events on the same day.

West Africa's Lost Generation

This is a story I am researching at the moment and trying to get a commission for. Hope someone will be interested.

How can children, who have killed and tortured, who have been savagely beaten and raped, have seen and endured extreme pain and violence, be normal children again?

In West Africa, a whole generation of children are struggling to cope with the impact of civil war, ethnic cleansing, child trafficking and the AIDS pandemic – and many are pushed to the brink of suicide.

“You are rebuilding the schools and the roads and the bridges, but you are not rebuilding us, and we have suffered too much,” said a young woman in Liberia who have seen her father and brother being killed and is now selling sex to pay for food and school fees.

The international children’s organisation, Plan, together Family Health International, conducted the first-ever investigation into the psychological impact of war and trauma on children. The newly released study “Silent Suffering” is based on more than 1,000 in-depth interviews with children in Liberia, Togo, Sierra Leone, Cameroon and Burkina Faso.

The findings are harrowing. Sixty percent of former child soldiers interviewed in Liberia said they had witnessed another child being punished to death and 84 percent had found themselves “surrounded by, lying underneath or stepping on” dead bodies.

Not surprisingly, the children showed extremely high levels of post-traumatic stress syndrome and mental illness, but an alarming number are also suicidal. In Sierra Leone, 70 percent of girls and 80 per cent of boys without parental support were suicidal – and 30 per cent have already attempted to kill themselves.

Researchers were so shocked by “the level of despair” and distressing stories they uncovered, that Plan and FHI set up mobile units to give emergency counselling and treatment to the children most at risk, using traditional healing ceremonies, fairy tales sessions, family mediation and medical and social assistance.

Most youngsters said it was the first time they were able to discuss the atrocities they had witnessed or committed.

Plan has offered to take me to Liberia, where I would like to look at the impact of war on former child soldiers, visiting a few youngsters in their communities, see how they are coping and what their hopes for the future are. I’ll speak with family members to see how they can learn to love and care for these children again instead of seeing them as monsters. I’ll attend some healing/fairy tale/mediation sessions and see how they can help the children rebuild their lives. I also would like to look at the impact president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf -the first African woman head of state - is having on their lives and her efforts to improve their situation.

Anyone interested in this story?


Here is a Plan's video about the Silent Suffering study