By Dana Al-Qadi

Gargoyle senior editor


Posted Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2007, The OG, news

UNI'S STUDENT-RUN CLUB United for Uganda has hosted a variety of different events since last spring, from lock-ins to documentary showings.

On Tuesday, club members teamed up to host a much more intellectually geared event: a panel discussion at the University of Illinois on the plight of Uganda's “invisible children” — former child soldiers who had been forced to fight for the rebel army in northern Uganda.

“UFU has been focusing lately on the fund-raising aspect of our work, but many members have been wanting to do more awareness-raising — and beyond raising awareness of the situation in northern Uganda, trying to educate people to understand it better,” said junior Shara Esbenshade, co-organizer of the event along with senior Bianca Zaharascu.

The event, “Invisible: Understanding Child Soldiers and the Conflict in Northern Uganda,” was held in Room 223 of Gregory Hall and featured a panel of four speakers.

For the past 20 years, Uganda has suffered a civil war between the government and the Lord's Resistance Army in the Acholi region of northern Uganda. The LRA has abducted tens of thousand of children between 5 and 12 to serve as soliders and sex slaves. In August, the LRA agreed to peace talks with the Ugandan government, but progress has been slow.

United for Uganda raises awareness about the situation in northern Uganda, while conducting in-depth research and raising money to support the Uganda Children of War Rehabilitation Center, which provides former child soldiers with psychological counseling and medical help.

“Because UFU is looking at an international problem, it is important that we look past Uni and into the resource that is closest to us: the University of Illinois,” said sophomore Kayla Ginsburg, a UFU member who attended Tuesday's event.

The speakers were Uganda native Ibulaimu Kakoma, clinical psychologist Kirk Hauser, public health scholar Paula Treichler, and student activist Laura Stewart. They spoke about the general Uganda region, the psychology of child soldiers, HIV/AIDS in the region, and the role of the media in Uganda's 20-year-long struggle respectively.

Kakoma prefaced his remarks by expressing enthusiasm for the intiative shown by UFU members.

“This is the first time someone asks me to talk about Uganda,” he said. “I'm so impressed by these young people showing their interest in such an important issue.”

About 35 people attended the session, roughly one-fifth of them Uni students. The majority of audience members were U of I students, many of whom avidly took notes throughout the presentations.

The speakers used a variety of media to connect with the audience. Several panelists used PowerPoint slides with graphs and other data, while others handed out photographs of vastly undersupplied hospital wards that left some audience members shocked and silent.

Audience members participated in question-and-answer sessions after each speaker's presentation.

The event has only strengthened UFU's connections with the broader community.

“The leader of Invisible Conflicts, a student organization at the University, e-mailed me just to say how good he thought the panel was,” said Esbenshade. “One panelist wanted to know when UFU meets so he could come to meetings, and one audience member told us about a show he does on WRFU about Africa and said he wanted to hook us up with speakers to come to our club and talk to us.”

Another UFU member who attended the panel, sophomore Caroline Brown, appreciated the oppurtunity to learn more about the conflict.

“I think it was a great success due to the wonderful speakers,” she said, “as well as the very broad range of angles they used to approach the issue.”

[Postscript: Two days after this article was published, Shara Esbenshade presented a commentary on WILL AM-580 as part of the station's “Public Square” series. You can listen to her commentary here.]

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