By Gargoyle news staff
Posted Tuesday, April 10, 2007, The OG, news

MEMBERS OF UNI High's United for Uganda student organization have been invited to appear on a local radio program Wednesday afternoon to discuss their activities on behalf of Uganda's “invisible children.”

Senior Bianca Zaharescu, junior Eunice How, and sophomores Caroline Brown and Kayla Ginsburg are scheduled to appear on Radio Free Urbana's “Lolaka ya Africa” (“Voice of Africa”), hosted by Nick Pelafas. The show airs weekly from 4 to 6 p.m. on WRFU FM-104.5.

Pelafas, a 2000 alumnus of Uni High, is a graduate student in African studies at the University of Illinois. He hosts the show every Wednesday. Podcasts and more information about the program can be found here.

On tomorrow's show, Pelafas will discuss the latest developments in Uganda and interview UFU members about the work they are doing to help former child soldiers who were forced to fight for the rebel Lord's Resistance Army in the Acholi region of northern Uganda.

Pelafas first came into contact with the Uni High group when he attended UFU's open-to-the-public panel discussion, “Invisible: Understanding Child Soldiers and the Conflict in Northern Uganda,” held Feb. 20 in Gregory Hall on the U of I campus.

Three days after that session, UFU organizer Shara Esbenshade, a junior, presented a commentary on WILL AM-580 as part of the station's “Public Square” series. You can listen to her commentary here.

The following are excerpts from Esbenshade's Feb. 23 broadcast:

“United for Uganda is a group of students based at Uni High School. Our focus is to raise awareness about the situation in northern Uganda, while conducting in-depth research and raising money to support the Uganda Children of War Rehabilitation Center, which provides former child soldiers with psychological counseling and medical help. …

“United for Uganda sponsored a panel discussion last Tuesday entitled “Invisible: Understanding Child Soldiers & the Conflict in Northern Uganda.” The panelists, professors Ibulaimu Kakoma, Paula Treichler, and Kirk Hauser and student activist Laura Stewart, discussed the above issues, the psychology of child soldiers, Uganda's exemplary response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and the spirit of organizational change.

“The message of our last panelist Ms. Stewart was a powerful one: it is our obligation as global citizens, especially with the resources of the university at our hands, to give back to this world. Yet an equally powerful concept discussed Tuesday was Uganda's resilience and how intertwined that resilience is with its spirit of forgiveness. The kind of forgiveness where one embraces the very people who killed one's family. The kind of forgiveness that is hard for us Westerners to comprehend, and indeed the only kind of approach that can solve this crisis and heal its victims.

“And so I was left with the following firm conviction: give back to the world, but always remember to learn from those you would like to help.”

Esbenshade and fellow UFU organizer Mandy Grill, a senior, will be unable to appear on Pelafas' show because of scheduling conflicts with soccer.

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