The walk from St. Thomas University’s picturesque campus to Odell Park’s leafy lanes is quite nice on a cool autumn evening. It’s nothing like the long and dangerous walk from northern Uganda’s rural villages into the town of Gulu.
On Saturday people around the world participated in the GuluWalk to commemorate the victims of violence in northern Uganda – many of whom are children.
In Fredericton, the GuluWalk was organized by Children’s International Villages and the Fredericton Multicultural Association.
For 22 years, as many as 40,000 Ugandan children left their rural homes each night in hopes of escaping abduction by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a guerilla army. They walked to Gulu, a town that offers more safety from abductors than the countryside.
The UN estimates that the LRA has kidnapped as many as 20,000 children in the past two decades.
Travis Daley is a student at Leo Hayes High School and one of the organizers of GuluWalk. He said he was inspired by the stories of children in Uganda.
“I realize that I have it so good here. If I can make one person’s life better then I will have done my job.”
GuluWalk started in 2005 when the two founders, Adrian Bradbury and Kieran Hayward began a month-long ritual. Each night, they trekked 12 km into downtown Toronto to raise awareness about the plight of Ugandan children. Since then the event has raised over $1million for children’s charities in Uganda.
The organizers said the success of the event in 2006 urged the government to donate $1.5 million to support peace talks in northern Uganda that same year.
Last year 30,000 volunteers in 16 different countries took part in the fundraiser.
Fighting between the LRA and the Ugandan government has shaken the country since 1987.
Joseph Koney, the LRA’s leader, has ambitions to rule according to the Biblical Ten Commandments.
He claims to be defending the rights of the native Acholi people, but members of this ethnic group are often displaced and victimized by the LRA.
Koney evaded peace talks with the government for many years until a joint offensive by Uganda, Southern Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo a pressured him into calling for a ceasefire earlier this year.
The rebel group is notorious for its brutal massacres and raids. Children abducted by the LRA are often forced into service for the army.
“At this moment the money that we’re raising isn’t going to help stop the war, it’s going towards rehabilitating the child soldiers,” said Daley.
The proceeds from this year’s walk will go towards efforts to build a youth centre in Gulu. The Gulu Cultural Centre will help promote arts, culture and community in the region.
Two decades of violence have left 1.7 million people displaced. While some of them are beginning to make their way back home, the road to recovery is long and uncertain.
