To prevent wars and genocide, a culture of peace must be built. UMECS helps to build a culture of peace and fosters the education, rehabilitation and community reintegration of children and youth affected by conflict. These are among our critical strategies to end child soldiering.

In February 2008, UMECS Northern Uganda Education Program expanded its school sponsorship program to Amuru District on the border of Southern Sudan. “Amuru District was hard hit by the LRA war,” UMECS Country Director Charles Onencan points out “and urgently needs development assistance and support of its schools. Most people continue to live in high poverty displacement camps created during the war and most secondary school-age youth are not enrolled.”

UMECS selected 24 new students – bring our total number to 107 students in five districts - who were enrolled in partnered secondary boarding schools in neighboring Gulu district including at Sacred Heart Girls Secondary School, Sir Samuel Baker Secondary, Gulu Senior Secondary, Pope John Paul II College, St. Joseph’s Technical College and Gulu High School. Our Amuru students are regularly visited and mentored by UMECS Education Field Coordinator Anthony Ojok, a former headmaster. In Year IV, the Northern Uganda Education Program sponsors children and youth affected by war in secondary school through higher education graduation.

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How are high school youth in Northern Uganda coping emotionally and psychologically with their ordeals following a brutal twenty-one year war in which the majority of youth were forced into child soldiering or sex slavery, were abducted, displaced to squalid camps, traumatized by loss, witnessed atrocities or are otherwise severely affected by conflict? Following two years of planning and preparation, UMECS has collaborated with three partnered schools in Northern Uganda: Y Y Okot Memorial College, an all girls secondary school in Kitgum District, Kitgum Alliance College and Lira Palwo Senior Secondary School in Pader District to pilot School-Based Counseling and Guidance in Northern Uganda.

“Tens of thousands of children and youth were traumatized by their experiences in this war and their psychosocial needs must be addressed. At schools, the needs of teachers as well as students must also be addressed” says UMECS staff member Joel Ojok who heads UMECS School-Based Counseling and Guidance Program.

The Executive Summary and Report which contains data, analysis and recommendations may be downloaded here as a resource to schools and communities in conflict and post-conflict regions that may be considering implementing similar programs.

For the EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF REPORT, please click here.
For the FULL REPORT , click here.
To Read the article: "THE NEED FOR SCHOOL-BASED COUNSELING AND GUIDANCE IN UGANDA" by Country Director Charles Onencan, click here.

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