Haligonians with a mind for change stepped it up this year by taking steps in the fifth-annual GuluWalk. Last Saturday, 50 students walked to promote a more peaceful and stable northern Uganda. Collectively they raised $650.
“This event is about a group coming together for a common purpose, it’s about something bigger than your self,” says Jennifer Keeling, who was co-organizer of the GuluWalk this year. “We are here to help out.”
The event didn’t draw as many people as last year, when nearly 100 Haligonians participated and raised over $7000. But it may be because this year’s event conflicted with the International Day of Climate Change, says former Dalhousie international development studies and political science student Claire Dykhuis. This year’s donations will go toward building an arts and culture centre in Gulu to help bring the war-torn community together.
Northern Uganda is the site of a 23-year-long war, which has left the country in a state of devastation. In the beginning, the Lords Resistance Army would roam the streets of rural communities at night abducting children and indoctrinating them to become child soldiers. Thousands of children were forced to leave their homes and walk to cities like Gulu each night for safety to avoid abduction. Since the army began terrorizing northern Uganda in 1987, the infrastructure and opportunity for youth has all but disappeared.
“Imagine if it was going on here,” says Dykhuis. “It would be like walking to Bedford every night.”
“We are the night commuting generation,” she says. “This war has been going on for longer than I have been alive!”
The night commuting in northern Uganda has stopped, but the reconstruction of a fallen city is just beginning. Children who lived through the war have scars – both physical and emotional – that will last a lifetime. GuluWalk seeks to give these children an opportunity to reintegrate back into society.
The idea for the GuluWalk began in 2005 when Toronto residents Adrian Bradbury and Kieran Hayward first heard about the plight of the children in northern Uganda. They decided to do something about it. Every night the two of them would commute to city hall in downtown Toronto. They would sleep for a couple of hours, and then walk back to their homes and jobs at dawn. In doing this they were mimicking the harsh lifestyle of the children who were night commuting in Uganda. Over 31 days they walked 775 kilometres and took 872,739 steps. It was from this start that GuluWalk came into being and grew to the extent that it has.
Last year, more than 30,000 people in 75 cities and 16 countries took to the streets to urge the world to support peace in northern Uganda.
The war in Uganda is “ignored and forgotten,” says Keeling. “Many people have not even heard about this war, yet it has been going on for 23 years.”
“It is time now to rebuild a torn apart society,” adds Claire Dykhuis. “Our time is now.”
Recent Comments