FEATURES With Miles to go Before They Sleep A student journeys into the heart of Uganda's despair By Eric St-Pierre, The Link (Concordia University) MONTREAL (CUP)—A group of chil- dren between the ages of six and 12 are walking down Kitgum road towards the centre town of Gulu. They carry bags containing tattered blankets. By 8 pm these young children have reached their destination. Some have walked up to ten km to gather in schools, churches, or various shelters set up by non-govern- mental organizations (NGO). This nightly commute has been a part of their daily routine for three years. Why are these children running away? Official estimates predict that up to 20,000 young kids leave their villages to avoid the nightly brutality brought forth by the Lord’s Resistance Army rebels. A complex civil war is taking place whereby the human rights of the Acholi people are being obstructed by rebels and military officials. The human security of 1.6 million people is severely affected. These children have no choice but to sleep anywhere they can find within the district of Gulu. This past summer I found myself in Uganda, Africa, joining a group of Concordia students under the auspices of the Forum on International Cooperation (FIC). I had no idea what to expect. After landing near Kampala and driving along the main road, the shabby, makeshift houses were impossi- ble to ignore. The lush greenery of the forests reinforced the notion of Eastern Africa as the cradle of civilization; the poverty represented a stark contrast. But it was the direct experiences with people that shocked me the most. In Gulu, we visited the Charity for Peace school to see how these children are touched by the war. While we visited, the children sang traditional Acholi songs and danced before an attentive audience of several hundred of their peers. By 9:30 pm, everyone went to sleep in crowded rooms—with up to 80 sleepy children huddled tightly together in Spartan conditions. By 6:30 am, the children woke up—breakfast not provid- ed—treturned home to study, gather food, or work with their families only to walk back to Gulu the very next night. Ninety percent of the 450,000 peo- ple in Gulu live in camps for internally displaced persons (IDP). According to UNICEF, the camps are home to 1.4 million people, mostly women and chil- dren. Visiting Palenga IDP camp was extremely shocking, particularly the liv- ing conditions. Over 16,000 people reside in small huts and they are not going anywhere. Outside the camp, Uganda military forces patrol and keep the camps “safe,” though officers have been known to abuse those within the camp. At night, attacks from the rebels can occur at any moment. The situation in northern Uganda is absolutely dire. Andrew Thompson from the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid department describes northern Uganda as “the world’s most forgotten humanitarian disaster.” Within the camp, and in the Gulu region in general, the UN estimates the rate of HIV/AIDS infection is the high- est in Africa. There is a lack of clean water, malnutrition is the norm, and there are no proper grounds for burials. I recall looking at a young boy of about ten years—his eyes red and his face adorned by a permanent look of fear. There is little for people here, yet daily life continues. The initial plan for FIC Concordia was to monitor the activities of the Ugandan Women’s Efforts to Save Orphans. We hoped to come up with ideas for how this NGO could better assist children and promote ideas to strengthen the organization’s structure. FIC had done some fundraising in Canada and donated a significant sum of money to the group. The second project was aiding orphans from SOS Uganda. We visited the housing premises—each had lunch with one of the SOS families and played with the children. We realized that this NGO was efficient and provided much needed help to the orphans it harboured. We decided to move on, the living con- ditions for the IDP’s of northern Uganda, living in the country’s capital, appearing more urgent. We visited a slum called Namuwongo where the living conditions for 3,000 res- idents were appalling. There was no sani- tation; residents disposed of their feces using “flying toilets”—the feces is tied up in a bag and then thrown into the tiver—also the local source for drinking water. Housing is scarce and very basic. Unemployment, malnutrition, and the high infection rates of diseases are prob- lems that plague the population. Awel Uwihanganye, a founding mem- ber of Concordia FIC and originally from Uganda, calls the group “a base for students who have a desire to interact with their counterparts on a global scale and also make some contribution to society at home and abroad.” Putting words into action, a group was formed in Namuwongo to forge relationships between our group and Acholi youth. Efforts were made to establish the youth group with vocation school workshops, open a bank account, and create links between the group and others in Gulu. The hope is to make reintegration into northern Uganda easier upon the civil war’s end. Over the course of the year, the idea of enhancing global responsibility to contemporary problems eventually expressed itself in the form of an NGO called the Global Forum on International Cooperation (GFIC). GFIC put action into words and one of the group’s afterthoughts soon became a reality. The first International conference under the auspices of GFIC was held at Makerere University in Uganda last July. Ugandan President Y.K. Museveni opened the conference. Justice of the Uganda Supreme Court George William Kanyeihamba, along with representatives from the World Bank, the United Nations, CTV, CBC, and Ugandan Foreign minister Sam Kutesa were also in attendance. Panel topics included economic develop- ment, conflict resolution in northern Uganda, environmental sustainability, women and HIV/AIDS, the role of media, and Western perceptions of Africa. Over 300 students from nearby colleges and universities attended the conference along with our group of young Canadians. The complexities in this part of the world ought to be challenged not only by Ugandan youth but also by youth from all over for the world, for issues that affect Africans also affect us all.