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2008-08-19 issue:

Parents of abducted children get help

Ugandan organization provides trauma recovery strategies, reconciliation.

by Mennonite Central Committee

Print Article

Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) is using the gifts of its supporters to meet needs throughout the world, including peacebuilding projects in Sudan and Uganda. Donations that exceeded projections have funded a $7.2-million plan initiated in 2006 for special projects over three to five years.

Gena Sheller, MCC service worker, is coordinator for justice and peace in the Catholic Diocese of Rumbek, Sudan. Sheller works with the churches’ lay leaders, who often also are community leaders, as they wrestle with issues and explore how their faith leads them to respond.

MCC’s peacebuilding work in East Africa also includes partnership with Concerned Parents Association in Uganda. MCC workers Ben and Holly Porter of Denver serve with CPA, Ben as a technical adviser to a program for trainers in trauma recovery strategies and Holly in community-wide reconciliation activities.

In 1996, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) attacked St. Mary’s Aboke boarding school, abducting 139 girls. A nun followed the soldiers and pleaded for the girls’ release. They agreed to release 109 girls but kept 30 as prisoners.

Their parents decided to work together to try to free their daughters and formed CPA. Then they realized that they were not alone—the LRA was abducting children throughout northern Uganda.

“We wanted to get out of our pain in a positive way and help others get out of their pain,” says Angelina Atyam, chair of CPA and the mother of a girl who was abducted from St. Mary’s Aboke. Twenty-four of the 30 girls have escaped, including Atyam’s daughter. Four have died, and two are believed to still be with the LRA.

CPA started a reception center for children who escape the LRA and organized a network of support groups for parents of abducted children. The organization helped document more than 24,000 child abductions in northern Uganda and bring international attention to these atrocities.

Ron Flaming, international program department director, says that the overall $7.2-million plan covers work not only in Sudan and Uganda but also in Afghanistan, Colombia, Iraq, Palestine, Paraguay and other countries.

“We have these funds partly due to the recent strength of the Canadian dollar [but] also because income has exceeded projections in the past two to three years,” Flaming says. “The needs around the world are enormous and, in fact, increases have been offset in part by the weak dollar abroad. All the funds are allocated. This situation has provided a mechanism to respond to some special needs faithfully and creatively.”—Mennonite Central Committee

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