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| Ishmael Beah dribbles a ball towards the net on Wickwire Field. (Lukas Akerley Photo) |
After two emotionally draining days, a group of former child soldiers, a team of researchers from Dalhousie University, and their families enjoyed the ever-elusive Halifax sunshine during a game of soccer.
The players used the time to relax, laugh and just have a good time. Dalhousie University Professor Shelly Whitman played in goal while Ishmael Beah, author of A Long Way Gone: Memories of a Boy Soldier played midfield. Despite the laughs and enthusiasm during the game, the players had spent the last two days recalling their traumatic childhood filled with violence, bloodshed and loss.
Former child soldiers from across the world converged at Dalhouse recently. For the first time, researchers listened as former child soldiers, now adults, described what they did in order to cope with the trauma of war. Participants were from Sierra Leone, Sudan, Uganda, Liberia, and Colombia.
Researchers from the fields of foreign policy making to medicine hope to extrapolate the coping mechanisms used by the former child soldiers to improve conditions for current child soldiers. Discussion topics included how to effectively disarm children and war, and how to create rehabilitation services to prevent re-recruitment into armed conflict.
Even though the other goalie, John Kon Kelei, 26, of Sudan, had let a few soccer balls slide into his net, it was obvious that he was enjoying the much-deserved down time.
Mr. Kelei had a whirlwind of a time in Halifax. After flying in from Holland on August 26, Mr. Kelei did a marathon of interviews with the local press, spoke at the World Congress on Family Law Children’s Rights at the World Trade Centre and talked to an audience at the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium and then to Dalhousie researchers.
Every time Mr. Kelei speaks about being a child soldier, he relives the trauma of losing his family and being forced to fight. But he knows his pain could help others. “We are players in the world and the world we’re trying to serve is for the next generation,” he says.
The generation Mr. Kelei speaks of has more than 300,000 children forced to serve as military combatants. Many of the children have not only witnessed the slaughter of innocent civilians but were also participants in committing the atrocities.
Mr. Kelei described his time in Halifax as fantastic, and says he finds Canada nice except for one thing. Upon arriving in Canada, he learned that Canada’s foreign service has started to change many of words they use. Since 2006, the federal government has used the phrases “child soldier” and “international humanitarian law” less and less, replacing them with “children in armed conflict” and “international law.”
“To avoid the word child soldier …”starts Mr. Kelei, before his voice trails off and he shakes his head in disapproval.
Advocacy from the ground up
Showing their own strength and resilience, Ishmael Beah and John Kon Kelei shared their painful experiences as child soldiers to an audience of students and community members at the Rebecca Cohn auditorium last month. Describing his childhood as “simple” and “remarkable,” Mr. Beah went from to singing and dancing to Run D.M.C. to wondering if he could survive a bloody civil war. The civil war in Sierra Leone reached his community in 1991. At the age of 13, he was the only member of his family spared by rebel groups. But, while trying to flee the violence that claimed the lives of his family members, he was captured and forced to serve as a child soldier. “I couldn’t think of the long-term future anymore… there was a sense of uncertainty growing up in the war. I didn’t know where I was going or when this would end. There was no one to explain to us what had really happened,” said Mr. Beah. Similarly, John Kon Kelei of Sudan was also forced to serve as a child soldier. Mr. Kelei, now 26, was abducted from his community at the age of five and was forced to fight for a Sudanese rebel group. Despite the horrific circumstances of their lives, both Mr. Beah and Mr. Kelei have gone on to become internationally known advocates of peace. Mr. Beah authored the best selling book, A Long Way Gone: Memories of a Boy Soldier. Mr. Kelei is working on his master’s degree in International and European Law. He is the co-founder of the Network of Young People Affected by War (NYPAW). By sharing their stories, they hoped to raise awareness of the plight of child soldiers. While reliving their experiences day after day is painful, Mr. Beah notes the alternative of not saying anything and not doing anything is worse. With a raised awareness in communities like Halifax, Mr. Beah and Mr. Kelei hope to create a grassroots movement that will help eradicate the use of child soldiers. “If you think Mr. Stephen Harper will solve it, then you’re wrong,” said Mr. Kelei to the audience, which erupted in laughter and applause. All the “talk talk” of international politics behind the curtains doesn’t work, he added, and change comes from the bottom up rather than the top down. One way to create a bottom-up movement, suggests both Mr. Beah and Mr. Kelei, is simply e-mailing your MP. E-mailing a MP voicing your concern of the world’s youth and asking what your MP is doing in parliament to stop the use of children in war is more effective than throwing money at issues. The night was capped off by a book signing of Mr. Beah’s memoir and an art exhibit that featured artworks by children affected by war. Rather than the typical childhood depictions of rainbows and unicorns, the chilling, dark-coloured artwork featured violent depictions of dead bodies, AK-47s and blood. Grace Akallo, a former child soldier from Uganda and best-selling author of Girl Soldier: A Story of Hope of Northern Uganda’s Children, was scheduled to speak at the event. However, due to restrictions on her visa, she was unable to fly in from the U.S. For more information, check out: http://www.childsoldiersinitiative.org/. |
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