Raising awareness for Uganda

BY ELYSE AMEND

elyse.amend@transcontinental.ca

After 21 years of civil war, tens of thousands of people killed, and over 1.7 million men, women, and children displaced from their homes, the plight of northern Uganda is still unknown to many.

“Before Concordia, I really didn’t know much about what was going on there,” said 21-year-old Pointe Claire resident and Concordia University psychology student Allison Couto, who spent over two months in the African country working with the Concordia Volunteer Abroad Program (CVAP) in the northern town of Gulu.

Since 1987, the people of northern Uganda have been the victims of a vicious civil war between the Ugandan government and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Led by Joseph Kony, who believes he is a messenger sent from God, the LRA has been terrorizing civilians with extreme violence and killings, and has abducted an estimated 30,000 children to use as child soldiers and sex slaves. These children were often forced to do terrible things against their will, including killing their own family members. As a result of the war, nearly two-million citizens were forced to flee their homes to live in internally displaced person (IDP) camps, where personal safety is threatened, unsanitary conditions prevail, and HIV/AIDS runs rampant.

Back in Montreal and inspired by the people she met in Uganda, Coutu is leading the CVAP Volunteer team for this year’s GuluWalk, which will be held on Oct. 20 in downtown Montreal.

“A lot of people we met who worked for Concordia there were abducted as children. It was really surreal to see these people and hear their stories. And we’re walking for them,” Couto said, remembering Stephen, a 21-year-old groundskeeper, who was abducted by the LRA in his early teens. “His family thought he was dead. And when he came back, everyone said he was a ghost... He didn’t like to talk about the things he did (with the LRA).”

The GuluWalk was started by two Toronto residents, Adrian Bradbury and Kieran Hayward, who walked from their homes to sleep outside Toronto city hall every night in July 2005, for a total of 775 kilometres. They did this to raise awareness about the “night commuters,” groups of as many as 40,000 children who would walk up to 20 kilometres from their villages to urban centres every night, so they could avoid being abducted by the LRA and sleep in relative safety.

While peace talks between the LRA and the Ugandan government are currently being held and the night commutes have stopped for the most part, the problems in northern Uganda still persist.

Today, there are dozens of GuluWalks held around the world to raise money to support programs in northern Uganda. This year’s Montreal edition will take place on Oct. 20, with registration at 1 p.m. The walk will get underway at 2 p.m. starting at the corner of McGill College and Sherbrooke. People can sponsor individual walkers, teams, or the GuluWalk organization to add to the $500,000 that has been raised since the first global event in 2006. “You can even just show up on the day and walk to show you support the cause,” Couto said.

For more information on GuluWalk 2007 and to donate or sponsor a person or team like the CVAP Volunteers, visit www.guluwalk.com.?