Prayer and Action Weekend for the Children of Northern Uganda
On September 23-25, faith leaders and communities around the world will speak out to raise attention to the forgotten plight of children in northern Uganda. Religious leaders, read the letter below and speak out to your congregation! Members of religious communities, print out and deliver the text of the letter to your faith leader today! Join us in raising our chorus of voices to pray that our leaders make human dignity and life in northern Uganda a priority.
Additional ways to participate:
Sign the religious sign-on letter for peace in northern Uganda
Look at this poster!
Use this prayer from Monsignor Matthew Odong, of Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative:
PRAYER FOR PEACE IN NORTHERN UGANDA
Oh God of Justice and Peace,
Father of the oppressed, the poor and the marginalized,
we entrust to Your Fatherly love, mercy and care all the people of Northern Uganda: the children, the night commuters, the people in the refugee camps,the abductees, and the combatants.
Touch the minds and hearts of the conflicting parties: the Ugandan Government and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). Help them to put down their guns and embrace dialogue.
Fill them with love in order to stop violence against each other in this land.
Enlighten the minds and hearts of the International Community and the United Nations Security Council to show solidarity with Northern Uganda in taking the necessary steps and actions to end the crimes against humanity in Northern Uganda.
Bless the efforts and good will of all peace-loving men and women in Uganda and across the globe who are involved in mediation, advocacy and creation of awareness on the humanitarian crisis in Northern Uganda.
May their efforts bring lasting peace, justice and respect for human dignity.
We ask all this in Your Holy Name, great and merciful God. Amen.
Will your community be participating? Contact Michael Poffenberger, associate director of Africa Faith and Justice Network at mpoffenberger@ugandacan.org or (202) 884-9780 and let us know.
Text of the letter
Dear Religious Leaders,
For the last nineteen years, a war has raged in northern Uganda, forgotten by most of the world. Since 1987, a rebel group known as the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has been fighting for power against the Government of Uganda. The LRA holds no territory in Uganda, but operates out of southern Sudan, conducting cross-border attacks in Uganda. This war has been fought primarily by abducted children. It is estimated that more than 30,000 children have been abducted and forced to fight for the LRA. Currently, those abducted are estimated to comprise 80 to 95 percent of the LRA's forces. Girls who are abducted have the worst plight, as they are forced to fight and serve as sex slaves to LRA commanders. Many become pregnant and must care for their children while fighting a war they did not choose.
The LRA usually makes it raids to abduct children at night. To cope with this horror, families are forced to send their children to sleep unprotected on the streets, so as to avoid being kidnapped. This tragic trend of "night commuting" has increased, with up to 50,000 children now walking every evening as far as 10 miles into town centers and makeshift camps to escape the LRA. As they find sleep on the streets, they are vulnerable to other adult predators while they are away from the protection of their families.
The on-going war in northern Uganda has also forced up to 1.6 million people into camps of squalid conditions and has trapped an entire generation in the throes of violence, hunger and disease. At the end of the 2003, Mr. Jan Egeland, the United Nations Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, told the BBC: "I cannot find any other part of the world that is having an emergency on the scale of Uganda that is getting so little international attention." At the end of 2004, Mr. Egeland declared the crisis in northern Uganda, "the world's biggest neglected humanitarian crisis."
Together, we are raising a chorus of voices to change this. On the weekend of September 23-25, we are asking faith leaders all around the world to speak to their communities about the plight of children in northern Uganda. Together, we will call upon our leaders to make a lasting peace in northern Uganda a priority. We will assert that children have the right to sleep in their own beds nightly, without real fear of kidnapping and abduction.
On this weekend of prayer and action for the children of northern Uganda, we ask you to
1. Speak to your community about the forgotten plight of these children for the last two decades.
2. Pray, in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Uganda, for a more peaceful future that affirms the dignity and life of all.
3. Sign, with religious leaders in Uganda and the United States, the religious sign-on letter at www.ugandacan.org/signonletter.php.
4. Mobilize your community to take action to tell your representatives to condemn the use of child soldiers and work for a swift resolution to the conflict in northern Uganda.
Please find included on Uganda-CAN's website links to resources to learn more about the conflict, as well as sample letters, posters and other organizing materials for your community to speak out, pray and act with tens of thousands around the world for the children of northern Uganda. Please record your community online, learn more and make donations to relief efforts at www.UgandaCAN.org.
We will declare September 23-25 that we are our brother's keeper and shall speak out until the violence of war and hunger fall silent in northern Uganda. Please join us.
In peace,
The Uganda-CAN Team
Additional ways to participate:
Sign the religious sign-on letter for peace in northern Uganda
Look at this poster!
Use this prayer from Monsignor Matthew Odong, of Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative:
PRAYER FOR PEACE IN NORTHERN UGANDA
Oh God of Justice and Peace,
Father of the oppressed, the poor and the marginalized,
we entrust to Your Fatherly love, mercy and care all the people of Northern Uganda: the children, the night commuters, the people in the refugee camps,the abductees, and the combatants.
Touch the minds and hearts of the conflicting parties: the Ugandan Government and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). Help them to put down their guns and embrace dialogue.
Fill them with love in order to stop violence against each other in this land.
Enlighten the minds and hearts of the International Community and the United Nations Security Council to show solidarity with Northern Uganda in taking the necessary steps and actions to end the crimes against humanity in Northern Uganda.
Bless the efforts and good will of all peace-loving men and women in Uganda and across the globe who are involved in mediation, advocacy and creation of awareness on the humanitarian crisis in Northern Uganda.
May their efforts bring lasting peace, justice and respect for human dignity.
We ask all this in Your Holy Name, great and merciful God. Amen.
Will your community be participating? Contact Michael Poffenberger, associate director of Africa Faith and Justice Network at mpoffenberger@ugandacan.org or (202) 884-9780 and let us know.
Text of the letter
Dear Religious Leaders,
For the last nineteen years, a war has raged in northern Uganda, forgotten by most of the world. Since 1987, a rebel group known as the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has been fighting for power against the Government of Uganda. The LRA holds no territory in Uganda, but operates out of southern Sudan, conducting cross-border attacks in Uganda. This war has been fought primarily by abducted children. It is estimated that more than 30,000 children have been abducted and forced to fight for the LRA. Currently, those abducted are estimated to comprise 80 to 95 percent of the LRA's forces. Girls who are abducted have the worst plight, as they are forced to fight and serve as sex slaves to LRA commanders. Many become pregnant and must care for their children while fighting a war they did not choose.
The LRA usually makes it raids to abduct children at night. To cope with this horror, families are forced to send their children to sleep unprotected on the streets, so as to avoid being kidnapped. This tragic trend of "night commuting" has increased, with up to 50,000 children now walking every evening as far as 10 miles into town centers and makeshift camps to escape the LRA. As they find sleep on the streets, they are vulnerable to other adult predators while they are away from the protection of their families.
The on-going war in northern Uganda has also forced up to 1.6 million people into camps of squalid conditions and has trapped an entire generation in the throes of violence, hunger and disease. At the end of the 2003, Mr. Jan Egeland, the United Nations Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, told the BBC: "I cannot find any other part of the world that is having an emergency on the scale of Uganda that is getting so little international attention." At the end of 2004, Mr. Egeland declared the crisis in northern Uganda, "the world's biggest neglected humanitarian crisis."
Together, we are raising a chorus of voices to change this. On the weekend of September 23-25, we are asking faith leaders all around the world to speak to their communities about the plight of children in northern Uganda. Together, we will call upon our leaders to make a lasting peace in northern Uganda a priority. We will assert that children have the right to sleep in their own beds nightly, without real fear of kidnapping and abduction.
On this weekend of prayer and action for the children of northern Uganda, we ask you to
1. Speak to your community about the forgotten plight of these children for the last two decades.
2. Pray, in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Uganda, for a more peaceful future that affirms the dignity and life of all.
3. Sign, with religious leaders in Uganda and the United States, the religious sign-on letter at www.ugandacan.org/signonletter.php.
4. Mobilize your community to take action to tell your representatives to condemn the use of child soldiers and work for a swift resolution to the conflict in northern Uganda.
Please find included on Uganda-CAN's website links to resources to learn more about the conflict, as well as sample letters, posters and other organizing materials for your community to speak out, pray and act with tens of thousands around the world for the children of northern Uganda. Please record your community online, learn more and make donations to relief efforts at www.UgandaCAN.org.
We will declare September 23-25 that we are our brother's keeper and shall speak out until the violence of war and hunger fall silent in northern Uganda. Please join us.
In peace,
The Uganda-CAN Team