In our dance class today, we were lucky enough to have a representative from the charity War Child, come in and do a presentation for us. This charity was founded in 1993 by two film-makers David Wilson and Bill Leeson. This charity provides life-changing support to the most vulnerable children whose families, communities and schools have been torn apart by war. They mainly focus on protection, education, livelihood and also advocacy of the children suffering due to war.
During this wonderful yet saddening presentation, we were shown two video clips that have been made to help raise awareness. These clips were very emotional, because the first one was about a girl called Alice who had been a victim of conflict. She was a happy 8 year old girl until war started in her country. It destroyed everything she loved and cared about such as her family, friends, toys, school and her house. She was at daily risk of being shot at, abducted, raped, tortured and killed. This little story made everyone go silent and look at each other with such sad faces. But that wasn't the worst or even the most emotional story that we were shown.
Just when we thought that life in these places wasn't bad, we had to think again because this next video was horrific. This video clip was about the story of a girl named Juliet. Her real name is Pauline but her identity was hidden for the sake of the video. She was a former child solider in Uganda. She came to London to share her experiences to the Government; how girls and children are being affected by war in the northern part of Uganda. She asked them to support children who are affected by war, to help them go back to education. She said that she saw young girls being forced into sexual relationships with older men as well as seeing people die and others telling the women not to cry for their children. They didn't have a house to sleep in so they slept in the rain or in a bush. Life was not good for her at all during this time. At the age of only 12 years old in 2002, Juliet was abducted from her village by rebels from the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda (north). She was beaten with a gun and forced to walk a far distance. She could not escape as she was surrounded by the soldiers. On this same day, the rebels killed a man right in front of her (he was her neighbour).
As Juliet and her friends were running from an attack, one of them was shot dead. She was forced to become what they call a rebels 'wife'. She was threatened by the other rebels. They told her that if she didn't become the rebels wife then she would be killed. She became pregnant with his child at a very young age. But unfortunately, because she was so young, the baby died and Juliet had developed a health problem and so she needed an operation. Therefore Juliet was taken to Nairobi. This is where she managed to escape. A nurse that was working there was able to help free her.
She returned to Uganda and was happily reunited with her family - Her life had changed again.
Links
War Child Website - http://www.warchild.org.uk/
Their Facebook Page - https://www.facebook.com/warchilduk
Their Twitter Page - https://twitter.com/warchilduk
Alice's Story - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nTh3VtnKTQ
Juliet's Story - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Mj2ooJJD3A
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