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Campaigns to end child soldiering must be supplemented by grassroots activities that have impact on the ground. Advocacy should be directed toward:

1. The prevention of war
2. Helping to build a mainstreamed culture of peace, including through school-based education programs
3. Addressing the here-and-now education and rehabilitation needs of children and youth affected by conflict, including former child soldiers

Child Soldiering will not end until wars are prevented. This is because:

1. Targeting and Terrorizing Civilians is the Strategy of Today’s Wars

Throughout the past forty years of war, the strategy of most armies is to target and terrorize civilian populations. The vast majority of those who are killed, wounded, raped, mutilated, and abducted by combatants in today’s wars are civilians.

2. Children are the Soldier of Choice in Many of Today’s Wars

To execute these strategies, children have become the soldiers of choice. Why children? Children are vulnerable, are blindly obedient and easily brainwashed. Since the moral compasses of children are not well formed, most children can be forced to commit the most brutal atrocities which cause many adult soldiers to pause. Children become especially aggressive in committing atrocities to please their commanders and to survive in a kill-or-be killed environment. Children are agile and fit and easily trained in the use of light weapons. Children do not have to be paid, a special bonus for non-state actor militias, and children provide additional “benefits” to soldiers: girls serve as sex slaves and are “married” to older commanders while boys serve as porters, cooks, body guards, sentries, and are easily ordered to walk at the front of an advancing unit to trip landmines.

3. Once wars start, they rage out of control like a forest fire

Many factors lead to war but once wars start, they take on a life of their own and can rage out of control like a forest fire that burns until it expires. Protracted wars seldom respond to peaceful interventions. The dynamics which keep wars going may be different from the factors that started them. Once genocides start, they continue until the last drop of blood has been shed. Despite international proclamations of “right to protect,” and “never again,” that is not today’s reality on the ground. To end war and genocide, war and genocide must be prevented.

To Prevent Wars, it is Necessary to Build and Mainstream a Grassroots Culture of Peace

A culture of peace is embraced within a vision of peace based on both indigenous and universal values of respect for life, justice, kinship, solidarity, tolerance, relationship, human rights, human dignity and equality between men and women.

Strategically and practically, especially in war weary societies where the motivation is high to prevent future wars, building a culture of peace must be a realistic undertaking which can be mainstreamed into structures and sustained by society.

The Role of School-Based Peace Education in Building a
Culture of Peace

In order to build a mainstreamed, sustained culture of peace, peace education must be systemically mainstreamed into the education system, with components which emanate to the family and community.

If peacebuilding does not start with the young, then building a culture of peace within society becomes more difficult and is less likely to create the necessary relationships, values, skills and behaviors within and among societies to prevent war. When peacebuilding starts with the young, children and youth are empowered to become actors, not mere spectators, in shaping their own visions and futures. Children and youth can and will become lifetime peacebuilding practitioners if their immersion in learning about and practicing peace starts when they are young and continues through their formal and informal education.

School-Based Peace Education brings peacebuilding to the ground, and provides a systemic means for children and youth to become lifelong peacebuilding practitioners.

The Role of Education and Rehabilitation of Children and Youth Affected by Conflict

In addition to the compassionate needs and the human rights of children, education and rehabilitation of children and youth affected by conflict is also an important strategy to end child soldiering.

Former child soldiers who remain uneducated are at high risk of being re-abducted or recruited in times of armed conflict by one or more combatant groups. Former child soldiers who have no educational opportunities are especially vulnerable to joining a combatant group or national army.

Former child soldiers who do not have the opportunities for holistic rehabilitation, which includes cultural ritual and ceremonies, family acceptance, community re-integration and psychosocial services (counseling) are vulnerable to becoming ensnared in anti-social activities.

All children and youth affected by conflict require education and rehabilitation. All children and youth affected by conflict, living in war zones or displaced to refugee or internally displaced persons camps are deeply affected and oftentimes traumatized by their ordeals which includes witnessing atrocities, the loss of close family members and friends and displacement from stable family and community life to chaotic, unsanitary and overcrowded camps.

Education is a protected activity. When former child soldiers, child mothers and all children and youth affected by conflict are educated and rehabilitated, their esteem and self-image is raised, their social skills and reintegration are enhanced and they are able to progress through the power of hope and knowledge. For children and youth who have been through such horrendous ordeals, the power of hope is a phenomenal force, and hope nurtures success.

Children and youth throughout sub-Saharan Africa do not take school for granted. They are eager learners, avid readers and see school as their chance to become educated and skilled so they can support their families, help build community and contribute to society. Girls who finish high school are much more likely to send their children to school than uneducated girls, and are much less likely to become HIV positive than uneducated girls.

Not only are children and youth affected by conflict entitled to education and rehabilitation, both are also critical strategies to end child soldiering. If child soldiering is to end, the education and rehabilitation of all children and youth affected by conflict must be taken seriously.

UMECS Programs to End Child Soldiering

Northern Uganda Education Program

This holistic program sponsors and mentors children and youth affected by conflict, including former child soldiers and child mothers, from secondary school through higher education graduation. In Year III, the Northern Uganda Education Program enrolls the most vulnerable girls and boys from Internally Displaced Persons camps in fourteen partnered secondary boarding schools in Northern and Northeast Uganda. We provide secondary school fees, uniforms, scholastic materials, mentorship, counseling, and higher education – diploma and degree - sponsorship. Within this core program and in collaboration with its grassroots and institutional partners, UMECS piloted a School-Based Counseling and Guidance Program, is developing a School-Based Peace Education Program and has launched a Books for Northern Uganda campaign.

Northern Uganda Internship Program

In Year III, this program brings mature, culturally connected, highly skilled graduate students from the Institute of Peace, Leadership and Governance at Africa University who serve in UMECS programs and are hosted by multi-district grassroots organizations serving the needs of children, youth and women affected by conflict in Northern Uganda. Interns, who are from other African nations, are trained in peace building, and bring these training skills to communities and organizations in Northern Uganda.

School-Based Counseling and Guidance Program

Launched as a pilot collaboratively by UMECS and our partner Africa University at Lira Palwo Secondary School in Northern Uganda, this school-based program is designed to address the counseling and guidance needs of 671 students at this partnered secondary school in Pader District, Northern Uganda in which 60% of the students are formerly abducted children. UMECS also sponsors eleven students in this school. Twenty-nine teachers and community members were trained as counselors by John Mapfumo, head of Africa University’s Counseling Department and a school-based program was designed. The next phase of program development includes sending teachers and counselors-in-training to formal certificate and diploma level counseling institutes for further training and certification. This program will be replicated to other schools and the model will be assessed, evaluated and further developed as a systemic school-based counseling and guidance program in Northern Uganda.

School-Based Peace Education Program

This school-based program, currently in the planning phase in collaboration with three partnered schools in Northern Uganda and UMECS university partners, has the following goals:

1. Transform a longstanding history of war, within the context of a current war now winding down, to a practiced culture of peace

2. Build a mainstreamed culture of peace by preparing children and youth in Northern Uganda to become lifelong peacebuilding practitioners

3. Children and youth are empowered to become actors, not mere spectators, in shaping their own visions and futures.

4. Ground universal values and practices of a culture of peace and non-violence into primary and secondary school education

Project components include a Peace Studies curriculum that combines indigenous worldview reconciliation and traditional justice, the study of non-violence and learning contemporary tools of peacebuilding (conflict resolution, conflict transformation) with youth-led peace activities (peace clubs, peace tours, drama, essays, debates, expressive arts, community radio) and community projects to practice what is learned in community peacebuilding projects. The project is being piloted in three secondary schools and will be expanded to primary schools and replicated.

Peace Fellows Program

Annual sponsorship of peace activists from conflict areas to the Institute of Peace, Leadership and Governance masters program at Africa University.

A society through its communities that builds and maintains a culture of peace will reap the benefits of education, community building, sustainable development, environmental restoration, and global citizenship.

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