Gulu without guns

A seven-hour potholed journey up to the north of Uganda, a region scarred by civil war for two decades – to an oasis that the Commonwealth has helped build just outside the town of Gulu. Surrounded by sprawling makeshift camps of displaced people, the Northern Uganda Youth Development Centre (NUYDC) will provide resources, vocational skills, counselling and hope to many young people affected by the war.

On Saturday, 17 November 2007, the Centre was officially opened by Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon. Under tents in the humid heat, around 250 people turned up to witness what many see as a sign that the 18-month-old peace talks between the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels and government troops have taken root.

As Henry Oryem-Okello, Uganda’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, said, you can make physical peace, but peace in the hearts and minds of people will take time. NUYDC is part of that healing process. Just 12 months ago, the land was bush. Now the Centre has an identity – a neat collection of offices and training rooms have been built in just six months. In turn, these will be used to help rebuild the lives of many young people living in the area.

The ceremony on Saturday included the graduation of 28 young women, many former child soldiers – and some with babies. In formal black gowns, they received their certificates from the Secretary-General to officially acknowledge the end of their eight-month crafts training and the beginning of their reintegration into society.

They are the first graduates from the Centre. Joseph Okema, who is Programme Manager of the project, explained that this process of self respect was something that could never be quantified. He stated that four of the women had already found paid employment as crafts trainers elsewhere. War has snatched the childhoods of these people, but as young adults, some are already able to share their new expertise.

The scene in a nearby resettlement camp was grim. We interviewed 17-year-old Ondong Goeffrey, who had spent five years fighting for the LRA. He was abducted at midnight from Gulu town at the age of 11. His daily routine as a child soldier had been fighting, killing, beatings and semi-starvation. He said the child soldiers had sometimes gone for up to seven days without food. He pointed out a wound on his right leg where he had been shot and the bullet had penetrated the bone.

Last year, he escaped when they were fighting nearby: “I was very scared,” he said. Now he was living amidst 4,700 other internally displaced people in the Labora satellite camp. He spent his days doing “nothing” – there was no work and people believed that if you had fought as a child, you had a “demon” inside you.

On top of poverty, fear and homelessness, Ondong also had to deal with the stigma of fighting in a brutal war he had no choice in being part of.

Dr Fatiha Serour, Director of the Commonwealth Youth Programme, told him that he should visit the Centre, less than a kilometre away. Its capacity is obviously limited and heavily dependent on external funding. However, it is clearly a symbol to a region that is haltingly finding peace. Quietly and bravely moving forward amidst terrible poverty and trauma.

"I salute the gentle and intelligent people whom I met, those who are clearly committed in a real and positive way to healing their community. People like Joseph Okema. It is a long road to travel and it will be as potholed, risky and as unpredictable as the route we travelled from Kampala, but it’s the only way to move forward and young people living there deserve that chance," said Dr Serour.

Secretariat Links:

• Country Profile: Uganda