Students Walk for Ugandan Children

More than 90 people—including members of the Harvard community—braved the cold and rain to raise awareness of the so-called “night commuter” children of northern Uganda in Boston’s first-ever “Gulu Walk” on Saturday. “Night commuters” walk all night in order to avoid capture by and abduction into the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

Both students and local residents alike carried signs along a six-mile route through Cambridge before convening in the Winthrop House Junior Common Room to swap strategies for making a difference and to hear from a representative of the African Union. Similar walks took place in 44 different cities, according to the walk’s organizers.

“It was a great way to bring attention to what these children go through,” said Pamela J. Worth, a marcher who recently graduated from Smith College.

“It sounded like a worthy cause,” said Oludamini D. Ogunnaike ’07, president of the Harvard African Students Association, which organized the walk in collaboration with Nandita Dinesha, a Wellesley College senior. The group, Ogunnaike said, wanted “to help make it happen.”

Civil war has plagued northern Uganda for the past 19 years. The LRA, led by the self-proclaimed prophet Joseph Kony, routinely abducts children into its ranks, often forcing them to kill their families and subjecting them to physical, mental, and sexual abuse, according to international human rights organizations and local activists.

Every night, thousands of children stream into northern Uganda’s major cities—like Gulu—to spend the night and avoid the LRA. At the peak of the exodus, some 40,000 children walked into Gulu every night, according to Human Rights Watch, a non-governmental organization.

Five of the LRA commanders were indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity on July 8—the first-ever arrest warrants that the ICC has issued.

Despite several reports by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and even a U.S. congressional bill condemning this situation, news coverage of the two-decades-long conflict and the children it endangers continues to be sparse.

Dinesha said her interest in the matter came from a summer spent in Uganda with the School for International Training. She visited some of the rehabilitation centers in Lira for children who have escaped from the LRA.

“It’s pretty intense, when you see this kid and know that he’s killed someone,” she said.

That intensity, she said, impelled her to join the Uganda Conflict Action Network and become involved with Gulu Walk.

Many of the marchers at Saturday’s event said they became involved after having similar experiences.

Meddie Katongole, originally from Uganda, came all the way from Albany to be a part of the walk.

“If I can do something to make a difference, it’s worth it for me,” he said.

Some, like Harvard Law School alumnus Charles D. Terry, said they saw themselves as part of the grassroots activism tradition.

“Although a walk doesn’t change things overnight, it can eventually bring about change,” Terry said, comparing the walk to the anti-Vietnam War protests.

At the walk’s close, Omatayo Olaniyan, who is acting permanent representative of the African Union to the United Nations, highlighted the importance of the marchers’ efforts.

“By marching, you are actually sensitizing the community here to the specific cases of the children in Gulu,” Olaniyan said.

Organizers also urged marchers to remain involved as best they could.

“The biggest thing, as Harvard students, is that we have leverage. Speak out,” said Ogunnaike. “Write your senators.”

According to Dinesha, the next step for her group will be an organized lobbying campaign.