UNICEF FILE: UGANDA

[Pamela]

Clay is featured in the latest UNICEF newsletter, which focuses mainly on the African food crisis, specifically in Niger.

Read the online version of the newsletter by clicking HERE.

[ANGELA]

Thanks Pamela,
I AM JUST SO PROUD OF CLAY!!

[ILClaymate]

Visit Uganda with Clay Aiken - new UNICEF slideshow.  Click the link below - on the righthand side of the screen.

UNICEF

[ANGELA]

HEARTWARMING & SO SAD AT THE SAME TIME.

THANKS CLANDY!!

[Pamela]

That video is very powerful.  I would imagine that Clay's experience in Uganda as well as Banda Aceh has given him a perspective most of us wouldn't have or will ever have. 

That perspective has made him stronger.

That strength will serve him well in any future humanitarian efforts.  And probably, the music business as well.   

Thanks Angela.

[Pamela]

Students create books for Ugandan kids
By BEN FINLEY
Bucks County Courier Times

Every night in northern Uganda, 40,000 children flee to shelters in fear of "The Lord's Resistance Army," a group of armed rebels who make soldiers out of the boys and prostitutes out of the girls.

"Children are often forced to kill their parents or other children," Carol Bellamy, executive director of UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund, wrote in the International Herald Tribune.

"Those who are taken, some as young as 6, are used as sex slaves in the rebel force, made to work as slaves, or forced to become soldiers. The LRA believes fighting age begins at 7,'' she said.

In an effort to provide comfort for the children crowded in those shelters, JoAnne Gari's art classes at Conwell-Egan Catholic High School in Bristol Township are authoring and crafting children's books.

Their effort is part of The Memory Project, a Wisconsin-based nonprofit focused on helping orphans and children living in difficult situations abroad. The Conwell-Egan students are finishing up their books this month and sending them to Uganda, an East African country about the size of Oregon.

The books are designed for small hands. They're 7 inches by 7 inches. They're five pages at most. Each page erupts in color from colored pencils or brush strokes.

The drawings come alive in styles that rival Matt Groening of "The Simpsons" fame or a stylish Hallmark card. Each book tells a simple story. Some are with words, some without.

 
There is "The Journey of the Mother Duck," about a duck who leads her children across rivers and roads to safety. Another book outlines the seasons of the year.

Some students spoke humbly about their stories as if their ideas just fell out of their subconscious onto the pages.

"I just thought it up out of my head," said 10th-grader Samantha Wallace. "I figured I'd draw a bunny because it's happy."

Seniors Kris Breault and Mike Farinella drew Rover the Dog cruising around on a Harley Davidson with flames on its sides. On the next page, Rover was scuba diving, and on the next page Rover hung from a parachute.

"We wanted to give them something they've never seen before," Farinella said. "They can make it whatever they want it to be."

Gari, the art teacher, said her goal was to make art relevant to her students.

"They can use art as a powerful tool," she said. "With this project, they can make art that means something."

PhillyBurbs.com

[Pamela]

Night terror sends children to town streets in northern Uganda

AFP via Yahoo! News Tue, 07 Feb 2006 8:11 AM PST
Clutching blankets, two young girls quicken their pace against the onset of darkness and the risk it brings of abduction by a rebel group that has sown terror in northern Uganda for nearly two decades.

Barely 10-years-old, Rosette and her neighbour Gloria are among thousands of children who trek daily to Gulu, the main town in northern Uganda, for a peaceful night in spartan shelters.

"We fear the rebels," said Rosette, dressed in a scruffy yellow T-shirt. "My sister was abducted. She never came back. Here in the shelter I feel secure."

Yahoo News

[Pamela]

Shocking Ordeal of Child Soldiers

AllAfrica.com Mon, 06 Feb 2006 3:07 PM PST
In our continuing expose of the atrocities of Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army in northern Uganda, Daily Nation columnist and security expert AMBROSE MURUNGA gives a detailed account of three child fighters' nightmare. He also unmasks those behind the conflict. 

Over the last decade, tens of thousands of children like Christine Akello, Patrick Oneka and George Opiyo have been forcibly recruited into Joseph Kony's rebel ranks.

Official figures show that since June 2002, over 17,000 children have escaped from the LRA and been processed through various rehabilitation centres in northern Uganda.

There are no reliable records of the number of children abducted since 1988 when Kony slithered onto the stage, taking over from his prophetess cousin, Alice Lakwena, and her father Severino. Unicef puts the figure at 25,000. But the district authorities in northern Uganda say it could be over 50,000.

They point out that numerous abducted children have died in captivity - shot or bombed on the battlefield, or killed by hunger and disease.

For many of these victims, their stories will never be told.

AllAfrica

[Pamela]

Visit to the Villages of Horror

AllAfrica.com Mon, 06 Feb 2006 12:47 PM PST
Armed to the teeth, the gang of 25 laid a siege on Geregere village in Pader District, Northern Uganda. It comprised men, children and one woman - all members of the Lord's Resistance Army. The day was October 22, 2002. 

The soldiers dragged frightened villagers out of their houses and tied them up. Word of their extreme methods of persuasion had spread throughout the region. The villagers had reason to be terrified.

Earlier that month, the rebels had attacked a village in Ogago sub-county and locked up people in their houses. They then set the houses on fire. Thirty four people were burnt alive and another 18 were bludgeoned to death.

Two weeks later, the rebels hit a settlement at Koch Ongako in Gulu district. They beat three men to death. The dead men's wives were then ordered to copulate with the corpses.

AllAfrica