Better lives for children
"We have a programme on education, and that is our strongest emphasis. It was clear to me the future in northern Uganda was very dark because the children were not receiving education," the Anglican Bishop of northern Uganda, Nelson Onono-Onweng, said in a meeting with the ecumenical delegation.
The government is implementing a programme to put every child in school as part of its Peace, Recovery and Development Plan for northern Uganda. This plan seeks to restore state activities, rebuild and empower the communities, revitalise the economy and promote peace and reconciliation. However, church leaders are concerned that many people may miss out in the implementation of the programme.
Under the government scheme for Universal Primary School Education, parents are in charge of books, meals and school uniforms, while the state provides for tuition fees and some education materials like chalk, which according to the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Gulu, John Baptist Odama many parents are unable to afford.
"Most of our people have had problems sending their children to the secondary and tertiary [university] level," Odama added.
The archbishop heads the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative, a regional grouping of Roman Catholic, Anglican, Orthodox and traditional leaders.
Apart from its negative impact on education, the church leaders said the war had exacerbated poverty by confining the people into camps.
"The whole population in Acholi land was displaced into camps, where the conditions where only enough for them to live from hand to mouth," said Odama. While they would normally have been able to feed themselves and their children, they had to rely on aid, he explained, a "dependency that destroyed them psychologically, especially the parents".
The challenge of reconciliation
According to Justice Peter Onega, the chairman of the Uganda Amnesty Commission, nearly 23,000 former rebel fighters have returned to civilian lives in northern Uganda since the parliament passed an amnesty act in 2000. Some have reported that, at the community level, the reception of the amnesty act has not been uniform and that the government package to the returnees has been causing tensions.
"It is seen as a reward for causing problems," said Betty Anyeko of the Gulu NGO Forum, a grouping of non governmental organisations.
Although the communities are traumatised by the brutality they have faced during the war, many say they are ready to forgive the LRA.
"They want peace talks rather than war. They want peace restored rather than fighting," said Aida Alwoch of Koch Ongako camp, capturing the wide-spread feeling.
Many refugees hope they can re-build their houses and live in them next year, instead of returning to the camps every evening after the daily work on their farms. But since the final peace agreement has not been signed, many are still apprehensive.
