What is Summer Camp?
Two Canadians, Andrea McKinlay and Lara Rosenoff, are spending the entire month of July living in Padibe internally displaced persons (IDP) camp in northern Uganda. They will stay in a rented hut and they will work with, eat with – - and will live like family with the 25,000 residents of Padibe IDP.
This is not a stunt.
Andrea and Lara are doing this, not as a personal challenge, but to draw attention to this endless injustice. The plight of the residents of the IDP camps of northern Uganda continues to be pacified with empty words, not action, from both the government of Uganda and the international community.
The time has come to put real effort and resources behind resettlement in northern Uganda and finally end this trauma and insecurity for an entire generation of people who have never known peace.
Why are Andrea & Lara doing this?
July 1, 2008, the third anniversary of the original GuluWalk, is the first day of ‘Summer Camp’ for a reason. GuluWalk’s aim was to highlight the impact of the conflict in northern Uganda on the children and the thousands of ‘night commuters’. The night commuting has all but stopped, but the impact of insecurity and the squalid conditions of the IDP camps are the unchanged barrier to a real future for the children of northern Uganda; and that is why Andrea and Lara are spending July at Padibe IDP.
The life of the internally displaced is still the unknown tragedy of the conflict in northern Uganda and their story still goes untold. Without committed, financially backed support for the region from both the government of Uganda and the international community, this vulnerability, poverty and desperation will continue. Who will stand up for the people of northern Uganda?
What (who) is an Internally Displaced Person (IDP)?
IDP stands for Internally Displaced Person. IDPs are persons forced or coerced to flee their homes but whom, unlike refugees, continue to live within their country’s borders. They are often obliged to leave their homes as a result of, or in order to, avoid the effects of conflict, violations of human rights, and generalized violence. 26 million people worldwide currently live in situations of internal displacement as a result of conflicts. Although internally displaced people now outnumber refugees by two to one, their plight receives far less international attention. (http://www.internal-displacement.org)
My name is David Sangokoya, and I am a sophomore at Stanford University traveling to Uganda from July 11 to Sept 14.
As a research associate with the Refugee Law Project (Makerere Law School), I will be interviewing internally displaced persons in the Lira district on their experiences in transitioning from the recently closed camps to cities in the Lira district. I will be staying in Kampala from July 11-26, Lira from July 27-Aug 23, and Kampala again from Aug 24-Sept 14. Although Padibe is not in Lira, I would like to interview both of you on your experience in mid-July, and gain some of your insights in the IDP experience.
Thanks for your time and I hope to be in touch with you. My email is dsango88@stanford.edu.
Regards,
David Sangokoya
Chappell-Lougee Research Scholar
Stanford Class of 2010
dsango88@stanford.edu