At UUSC, we recently had a special opportunity in our Cambridge, Mass., offices — a visit from Jackie Okanga, one of our international partners from northern Uganda. Jackie was instrumental in our work with partner organization Caritas Pader, who we collaborated with to help the Acholi people rebuild their communities and return home to their villages after over 20 years living in camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs). 

You may have heard of the online video Kony 2012, about the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). I would suggest, however, viewing War/Dance, a film that Jackie recommends about the history of LRA impact on northern Ugandans. The film follows a few youth as they tell about their personal experiences living in IDP camps, the circumstances that required them to leave their homes, and how they reconnect to their culture and one another.

Without giving too much away, I will share that the film demonstrates the amazing resiliency people have to regain their strength, especially when they have community to stand with them. That is unfortunately part of the story that Kony 2012 leaves out. This theme resonates for me, especially being part of an organization that works together with others using an eye-to-eye partnership model and is structured as a grassroots member-based human-rights organization.

Jackie shared how community is a strong attribute for northern Ugandans, even to the point of remaining open to the return of Kony to the Acholi villages. He is originally a member of the Acholi tribe; Jackie related dialogues she has had where the Acholi don't seek retribution but rather offer redemption. They seek to understand, and the best way to gain understanding is through connection. 

External influences certainly helped shape the situation in Uganda, including influence of private corporations and government. Rebellions begun for altruistic and ideological reasons turned into self-perpetuating war. Breaking the chain by calling home all displaced sons and daughters is a powerful step to understanding, and that leads to sustainable healing and community building. One of the more moving quotes from the film is when one of the youth proclaims, "I am more than a child of war ... I am the future." 

When I picked up my 11-year-old son from his friend's house on Monday, both boys told me about an amazing video they had just seen on YouTube that showed a really bad man named Joseph Kony who forced children to become soldiers. As a result of the exponential attention the Invisible Children Kony 2012 video is getting, you are probably hearing a lot about Uganda, Joseph Kony, and his horrific tactics. Kony is unfortunately alive and well (you can even track his actions), and it is indeed crucial to stop him from brutalizing more children. For me, the biggest issue the video leaves open is what happens to the children who survive Kony. At UUSC, we believe it's crucial to consider what happens to those children soldiers once they are freed or escape, as thousands have.

Since 2008, UUSC and our partner Caritas have helped over 20,000 of the Acholi people in northern Uganda rebuild after the brutal war between Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army and the Ugandan government. When these people returned to rebuild their villages after the war, they faced the challenge of what to do with the thousands of abducted children who escaped or had been released. The true tragedy of this war is that Kony made children murder and mutilate others in their villages precisely to guarantee that their communities would reject them, making his army their only refuge. The amazing story of heroism is how so many of these returned child soldiers have been able to draw on their resiliency not only to escape but to try to rebuild their lives in the face of initial rejection by their own people.

With the advice of our partner, UUSC found that the best way to help these former child soldiers gain acceptance was to integrate them into community activities, not treat them as a separate group. When I first visited Acuru in 2009, a formerly abducted soldier refused to sit in the circle of villagers or even attend the meeting, because he felt so shamed and rejected. One year later, in the same village, he was sitting in the back row — but he was part of the meeting. He was also leading an oxen team and was a member of the dance troupe. "I got a chance," he said. "This kind of work helps heal me." Our experience in Uganda has taught us that people have incredible wells of resilience that can be tapped if you believe in them and see them as survivors, not victims.

Kony continues to wreak havoc in central Africa, and he definitely must be stopped. We need to understand and take on our role in that — but it's important that we also understand the key roles Ugandans and Africans have played and continue to play. In the viral Kony 2012 video, the narrator's son Joshua clearly sees his father as a hero, but we want to hold up all the invisible heroes of this war in Uganda — the Ugandan religious leaders, parliamentarians, human-rights workers, parents, and NGO workers who struggled for years to bring attention to the war, to convince Kony to release children, and ultimately to bring peace to northern Uganda. As Semhar Araia says in the Christian Science Monitor, "We also know that young people's minds are open and hungry. They should be inspired by knowing Africa is empowered, saving itself and working with partners to remove Kony. That is the real story."

Check out more on UUSC's work with Caritas in Uganda:

The following blog post was written by Jennifer Galvao, an intern in UUSC's College of Social Justice.

Oftentimes when I am sitting at my desk, I find myself going from one link to another and becoming intrigued by a certain issue I find while browsing the web. As I was recently skimming through the UUSC website I found myself researching more and more into the Uganda situation. I came across information relating to a documentary that I had watched a bit of a few years ago titled Invisible Children. This was a film that was created by three young American men who decided to bring to light the situation that young Ugandan children are enduring: being taken away from their homes and families in the middle of the night and having to commit heinous and murderous acts that soon leave them emotionless and mentally disturbed.

As the hours passed, I found myself watching video after video relating to this cause and  thinking more and more about how disgusting it is that anyone could allow this to happen. As I read through the information which explained how the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) came into being, I noticed that it had listed one of the reasons for its creation as being a desire for the people of the rebel group to help to "obey" the 10 commandments. This, to me, seemed crazy. Surely if one is attempting to follow "God's way" — whatever it might mean to each individual — it could not mean in any sort of way having to mentally and physically scar a young boy. 

As I sit here typing this up, I cannot help but question: Is the LRA really attempting to pass their mission as being servants of God? Is this something they truly believe or this one leader's false message in an attempt to gain followers? It clearly must be. No human being in their right mind could possibly think that this is in any way normal.

Another thought came to me. If I were in those kids' situation would I be able to make it? What would be my daily thoughts once I was caught? If I had to harm my own family in any way to survive would I be able to do it in order to survive? Of course these are thoughts that no human being would like to think about. But at times I feel it is necessary in order to fully understand the situations that these children are facing.

My professor once asked us, "Had you been alive during the Holocaust would you have murdered someone else if instructed in order to stay alive?" Immediately every student in the class answered "NO!" Often it is very easy for us to assume that if we were in any situation we would do the right thing, but fear might just be the most dangerous thing known to man.

The point I am trying to make here is not a deep discussion into "What would you do?" Instead it is to bring light to the fact that at times people do not fully place themselves into the situation of others and truly grasp the reality of it — and because of that, effective changes are not able to be made. Charles G. Morris says, "Empathy depends not only on one's ability to identify someone else's emotions but also on one's capacity to put oneself in the other person's place and to experience an appropriate emotional response." When we become empathetic and relate our pain to those of others, then we are able to truly give ourselves to making a change.

As we take time to contemplate the state of the world this Human Rights Day, I sat down with Martha Thompson, manager of UUSC's Rights in Humanitarian Crises Program, to hear about the latest on our work around the world with marginalized communities in recovery from war and natural disasters.

Uganda

UUSC staff were just in northern Uganda as part of the Witness to a Return Home JustJourney, during which participants learned about the inspiring work that has — after just two years of support — helped more than 12,000 Acholi resettle 29 villages in 2 parishes. And those 29 villages are serving as magnets, drawing other displaced people back. After up to 20 years living in camps during the war with the Lord's Resistance Army, there is much healing and rebuilding involved in returning home. As the Acholi people reestablish their lives, they are not only rebuilding their homes and land but also reweaving their culture and reintegrating former child soldiers into villages to create cohesive communities.

Gaza

UUSC has pioneered work with Architecture for Humanity and the American Friends Service Committee to develop low-cost appropriate ways to repair houses in Gaza that were damaged during Operation Cast Lead, a three-week military conflict in late 2008 and early 2009. It's not just about fixing structural damage, though, it's about restoring human dignity. With our partners, we've finalized a report that catalogs the damages and outlines repair strategies. And now we're sharing it with other organizations in the shelter cluster in Gaza who have funds to act on the information.

Haiti

As we approach the one-year commemoration of the earthquake in Haiti, we've used approximately 40 percent of our Haiti Relief Fund to support survivors in myriad ways. One of the projects we're excited to see succeeding is the work with the Trauma Resource Institute of training a corps of 80 Haitian grassroots community organizers who will work as trauma resilience counselors. Next year, 20 of those 80 will become trainers themselves. We're also supporting and increasing safety for unaccompanied children in camps, since they're at high risk for sexual exploitation and child slavery. And through KOFAVIV, we're working against gender-based violence in the camps as well — they're in the process of training 100 camp activists on the issue.

Darfur

Our work in Darfur has spread to North Darfur, where we're partnering with UNIFEM to train police in northern Darfur and work with the U.N. gender officers the way that we did in South Darfur. While Darfur is too often left out of mainstream news coverage, we're still weaving a web of protection for women and girls in camps for internally displaced persons.

Pakistan

As UUSC staff takes off for an assessment visit to Pakistan, we're continuing to work with our partners there, Bedari and Barakat. With Bedari, we're setting up women's centers for people that are displaced within their villages. In the areas we're working in, mainly in the southern provinces of Punjab and Sindh, many displaced people are in debt slavery. Young girls are sometimes used as assets in paying off debts and denied any rights whatsoever — and at a time like this, when people's livelihoods have been destroyed, there will be a likely rise in this practice. So we're focused on looking at how we can protect women and girls from this and how we can support people rebuilding their livelihoods.

Nichole Cirillo, UUSC’s campaign manager, reflects below on the ingredients of a successful experiential learning trip: the partners, effective planning, and — most of all — engaged participants.

A month ago today I set out for the Just Journey to Uganda. As the trip’s leader, I was unsure of many things then — whether everyone would arrive on time (they didn’t), whether the transportation across bumpy roads would be smooth (it wasn’t), and, mainly, whether I could provide the kind of experience that would bring the issue of our partner’s work in northern Uganda to life. To animate it in a way that would make people truly understand what was at stake and how complex the process to restore justice to those affected really was.

On the way back from the airport that first night with a load of weary just-arrived participants in the van, I asked the young woman sitting next to me why she decided to come on the trip. She was effusive: the description sounded amazing, she’d never been to Africa, someone in her congregation had read about UUSC’s work. “Lots of reasons,” she said, a little bleary-eyed but happy. “But really, it was just a once-in-a-lifetime experience that I couldn’t pass up!”

Her words made me nervous, and all the way back to the hotel I worried about the sacrifice it had taken for her to get here — the cost, the time away from work, the toll of the international flights. Had I done enough, I wondered, to ensure that this woman would go home saying that this indeed had been a once-in-a-lifetime trip?

The thing is, at UUSC we can only do so much. We have fantastic partners, and our work with Caritas in Uganda is no exception. They are people who have put their lives on the line so that those ripped from their communities during the brutality of the civil war with the Lord’s Resistance Army can go home again. They are an inspiration to all those who work on behalf of justice. Staff at UUSC work hard to construct pedagogy for these trips and to lay out what we hope participants will take home with them.

But ultimately, that learning is up to the traveler. And once the plans are made, the speakers lined up, and the transportation seen to, we put our faith in those who opt to come along that they will let themselves grasp the true meaning of being there.

“The longest journey you will ever make in life is from your mind to your heart,” Chief Joseph once said. That night on the bus, I couldn’t have foreseen it, but everyone aboard would indeed be making the trip of a lifetime.

UUA International Resources Director Rev. Eric Cherry shares his thoughts after Witness to a Return Home, the JustJourney to Uganda, wrapped up.

The JustJourney to Uganda ended on November 16 after two days of delightful hospitality with the Unitarian Universalists of Uganda. On Sunday, we arrived in Kampala in time to attend a special worship service at the New Life Church, led by Rev. Mark Kiyimba. The service was extraordinarily welcoming, inspirational, and lively. Our group presented the congregation with a chalice from the United States and appreciated the warm welcome we received from the congregation. During the service, Rev. Mark described the work of the UUSC's partner Caritas, in northern Uganda, and how important those efforts and BGLT work are for Unitarian Universalists.

On Monday morning, we drove down to Masaka district where the New Life School and Orphanage are. Along the way, we stopped at the equator and saw the Coriolis Effect demonstration, which was really neat.

The welcome we received at the New Life School was pretty incredible, and the continuing growth of the school was amazing to see. The presentations that the children made for their parents and us, their visitors, were great: singing, dancing, etc. They must have prepared for weeks, and we were so grateful. We also visited a poultry project that was inspired by a UU Community Capacity Building workshop held in the same community last spring. The project is doing great and is inspiring similar livelihood projects around the community.

Our last visit of the day was also remarkable. The New Life Orphanage is a home for 18 children whose parents have died from HIV/AIDS. The children we met here will be with all of us for a very long time. Rev. Mark also showed us the location for a new orphanage, which will have twice the space and be the home for nearly 45 children. Its building is off to a great start.

John Crossan, a participant on the Uganda JustJourney, shares his awe of the villages of northern Uganda and the environment that they inhabit.

The trip to Pader has been amazing. Two things I'd like to comment on are the villages we visited and the "bush." Actually, the villages are deep in the bush so they are related.

My wife and I were with the group that visited two villages — one with perhaps two young families and one built for the vulnerable or elderly. These villages seemed self-sustaining, especially with the availability of oxen and plows. A number of members of the villages told us their stories of survival during the war.

The bush is truly dense and extensive; a person who steps in the bush would disappear in a few steps, especially if he or she stays low. It is easy to see how a rebel or a villager could completely disappear in the bush, with its dense grass, bushes, and a few trees.

We have completed the first leg of our JustJourney. It has been a profoundly moving trip, rich with testimony of deep and previous wrongs as well as rebuilding, repairing, and envisioning an empowered future.

We have learned firsthand about the atrocities committed in northern Uganda and listened to heartbreaking testimonies of abductions, years of subsistence living in the bush, and deaths of mothers, brothers, sisters, husbands, and wives. We have felt the shame of having been part of this long-forgotten conflict.

But peace in northern Uganda is now at hand. Families have returned to their villages, schools are being built, children are beginning to feel safe again, and people are starting to earn their own livelihoods again. We visited villages which are alive with the energy of optimism, moving from owning one goat to five, one ox to two oxen and a plow — all indications of growth and rebirth.

We have spoken with villagers, government representatives, and university and school teachers, and each conveys a singularly consistent message: we believe in ourselves and the future of Uganda. The times of handouts and foreign aid are winding down, and Ugandans are ready to steer their own future.

So we leave humbled and hopeful — humbled by what the people of northern Uganda have endured and hopeful because we know their future is in their very capable hands.

Rev. Sally Beth Shore of the UU Congregation of the Swannanoa Valley, writes from Uganda, where she is part of Witness to a Return Home, a joint UUSC-UUA JustJourney.

Today our group is still in the Pader district, after spending two days out in the countryside where Acholi people have returned to their villages from the internally displaced persons (IDP) camps. UUSC's partner organization, Caritas, has worked to help people return by having social workers help returning families find resources to enable resettlement. Today one of them, Jennifer, shared her story with us.

Jennifer's first experience with the war in northern Uganda came in 1996, when her village was attacked by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). She spent two days hiding in the bush with her young children until they were gone. A secretary by training, Jennifer left her job at the primary school when people were being displaced to camps, but she was able to get a job helping with food and supply distribution in the IDP camp for Sudanese refugees. In 2000, that camp was attacked by the LRA; she sought to make her way into the bush, but she was trapped in the office and surrounded that night.

In the morning she watched as LRA members sorted and butchered her coworkers, some of whose body parts were boiled in a kettle. Before she was forced to eat this, however, the government army entered the camp and gave chase to the LRA soldiers. Jennifer, taking her four-year-old with her, decided to make her way on foot to her home village, which took almost three days. She arrived to learn that the LRA was hunting her, and that they had already killed two of her uncles who had denied knowing her. Her father advised her to flee and gathered a little bit of money from relatives so she could make the trip to the town of Lira. She found lodging there, but had no more money and two children to feed. The women from whom she was renting her room helped her start selling small things in a market stall so she could support herself. After awhile, she was able to find a job as a secondary-school secretary in another town. However, the town where this school was located was not in Acholi territory; she was in the Langey area, and the Ugandan Army attacked there, so again Jennifer left her job.

She then learned of some American scholars doing a study in the IDP camps on the effects of war on youth, and she was able to work with them as a field researcher. As this study was concluding, she came to the attention of Martha Thompson, the manager UUSC's Rights in Humanitarian Crises Program, who had come to do an assessment with UUSC's Program Director Atema Eclai for  UUSC to begin work in northern Uganda. UUSC decided to partner with Caritas in Pader district in northern Uganda, helping people return to their villages. When UUSC launched their program through Caritas, Martha remembered her discussions with Jennifer and negotiated with Caritas to have her join the team working with the displaced. Jennifer began to work on the UUSC Caritas project in 2008.

It's easy to see why Martha was impressed by this amazing woman and wished to bring her onto the team. She has shown courage, commitment, and amazing resilience in the face of adversity. The need to support and care for her children, one of whom has been traumatized badly by his war experiences, has been a driving force for Jennifer. She supports not only her own two children, but seven of her sisters' children as well, because her two sisters were killed — one by the Ugandan Army, one by the LRA — during the years of fighting. When Jennifer engages with her clients, they learn that she is truly standing with them, having experienced many of the same horrors and hardship they have during the long time of war.

On the anniversary of Kristallnacht, Rev. John Gibbons, chair of the UUSC Board of Trustees and a participant on the Uganda JustJourney, honors the strength of the people in northern Uganda who have faced the devastation of war and are rebuilding their lives.

Tonight the electricity was out in Pader, a remote town in northern Uganda much traumatized by the long-forgotten war. As our group gathered at the end of a long day, former UUSC board member Jim Gunning lit our flaming chalice in part for its light but especially to remind us that the chalice was originally designed in the 1930s for us in Prague and elsewhere in Europe so that the Unitarian Service Committee could be identified as a safe haven to those fleeing the tightening vise of Nazism.

Now, in another country and on another continent, UUSC’s work continues as UUSC partners aid refugees who — despite horrific losses, dislocation and trauma — now attempt to return home to their villages in the aftermath of war. For many years, thousands of people were forced to live in the fear and chaos of camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs), women and girls risking rape when seeking firewood beyond the camp perimeters.

With many children abducted to serve as child soldiers and sex slaves, and many others murdered and missing, there is need today for both justice and reconciliation within families, communities, and badly brutalized hearts. In the remaining days of our JustJourney, we will continue to hear the stories of those hurt and healing.

Noticing that it is November 9, I realized that on this date in 1938 fascist mobs across Germany attacked, desecrated, and destroyed Jewish homes, synagogues and stores. Kristallnacht, the “night of the broken glass,” is recalled as a harbinger of the Holocaust. Condoned by the state and empowered by the silence of bystanders, evil enlarged overnight.

For northern Uganda, it was more than 10 years before the world much noticed the war and the suffering of thousands. “We felt abandoned,” the people say. Today, with the guns mostly put down and the camps mostly closed, many relief workers and nongovernmental organizations are leaving Uganda and returning to their homes in other countries. Meanwhile, the Ugandan people are now returning to their homes and villages, their lives devastated by war, still needful of justice and reconciliation. Sharing their lives and aspirations, UUSC remains with them.

On this anniversary of Kristallnacht, I recall those who once fled their homes in Europe and, on this dark night in Pader, I honor those who here and now are returning home. May peace prevail and may none be abandoned.