Childsoldiers

The Government Army hands over children that have escaped from the Lord’s Resistance Army to the centre. Because many of them are undernourished when they arrive, they first get a plate of food.

Due to undernourishment, some escaped or liberated children can barely walk. They get specially adapted, vitamin-rich food.

Many child soldiers who return from abduction have scars of beatings and torture.

Other children come back with bullet wounds sustained during fights. Richard (12 years old) was hit by three bullets. Moreover, rebels carved him in the face with a bayonet.

Many have wounds at their feet because they walked barefoot through elephant grass and thorn-bushes for days on end ...

The most serious cases are brought to hospital in Gulu or Kampala, such as this 14-year old girl, Christine. Rebels burned her whole family alive. She was the only survivor.

The military uniforms and old clothes, often stolen from murdered people, are being burned. This symbolises the end of their lives as rebels and the beginning of a new life.

One way or another, the children simply need to to express what they have gone through in the rebel army. This may take place through talks with their individual counsellors or through group sessions. "As if you help them vomit: the worst detail has to come out, because it keepsthem from functioning."

All debates take place in the ‘Children's Parliament’. On Fridays, a ‘guest speaker’ talks to the children.  This is a traditional, religious or political leader or visitor from abroad.

Children who find it hard to talk about their experiences in the rebel army express themselves in drawings. 

Others express themselves in drama therapy, by acting out their own abduction.

Music and traditional dances play an important part in the centre's trauma counselling.

Traditional songs, just like telling ancient tales, are also used to tie in with the children's social environment before their abduction, especially for children that spent 10 years or more in the rebel army.

In the centre, ex-child soldiers are taught to be  ‘children’ again. Every day from 4 - 5.30 p.m., there is time for sports, games and P.E..

Girls who come back with the children of their rapists, learn, among other things, how to bake bread. This enables them to make a living when they return to their villages.

There are also sewing classes for the child-mothers.

Nurses of the centre give sanitary education. Girls and boys are being sensitized in separate groups about HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmissible diseases.