M id-afternoon on Saturday, a quickscan around Grounds revealed that the University was abuzz, teeming with anticipation: Restaurants were crowded, parking spaces were scarce. Despite the gloomy weather, students and parents lined the streets, walking to and from the various events and festivities that encompass Family Weekend at the University.
A small group of students and local residents assembled on the steps of Old Cabell Hall. They too were walking, but not to attend an a cappella concert or to tour the Lawn. Instead, they took to the streets of Charlottesville as part of the 40-city GuluWalk effort, an international endeavor to commemorate a journey that takes place hundreds of miles away, night after night.
In rural Northern Uganda, a 19-year-long civil war rages on; approximately 40,000 children of all ages must flee their homes daily to evade the potential threat of abduction by the Lord's Resistance Army, a rebel entity. They walk miles upon miles daily, seeking an uncertain refuge, traversing battlefields and flooding city streets like those of Gulu, the namesake of the GuluWalk event.
To embark on this exodus is not a decision these children willfully can make. Very few can comprehend the magnanimity of this flight to their own respective livelihoods, as to stay at home would render them easy targets for heinous acts of torture, rape, slavery and death.
Under the leadership of fourth-year College student Ami Shah and the University's chapter of the United Nation's Children Fund (UNICEF), the Charlottesville GuluWalk began 3:45 p.m. on Saturday. Participants made the two-mile trek from Old Cabell around the Rotunda and down Main Street, continuing toward the endpoint of City Hall.
Those responsible for coordinating the GuluWalk worldwide contacted UNICEF-UVA, Shah said. The group felt compelled to take an active role in telling the unheard story of the courageous Ugandan children.
"We are passionate about issues like this," Shah said. "It really fit with our goals as an organization."
As a part of the worldwide UNICEF, the University chapter aims to promulgate the goal of the association at large, that is, the well-being and natural rights of children in all walks of life, from their safety and health to gender equality and education. Group members at the University focus on raising money to send to the global UNICEF, which in turn disperses its resources among a multitude of projects.
"We try to come up with fundraisers and events to send money to UNICEF, things like bake sales or donation collections," said fourth-year College student and walk participant Abi Fatade.
The GuluWalk provided no exception to this fundraising trend: T-shirts and bracelets were sold, with all proceeds going to Uganda. In addition, those partaking in the walk could either contribute money themselves or collect pledges for donations, with 100 percent of all funds going to the Ugandan children.
Beyond monetary sums, the greatest contribution of the GuluWalk effort lingers in the awareness it potentially raised of the situation in Uganda, which Jan Egeland, the U.N. Under-Secretary General of Humanitarian Affairs, has described as "the world's most neglected humanitarian crisis" and "one of the biggest scandals of our generation," according to GuluWalk.com.
Carrying posters with powerful facts and compelling pictures, walk participants united together under one voice to shed some light upon the dismal circumstances in Uganda for the Charlottesville community at large.
"We need to show solidarity, as most Western nations see the war [in Uganda] as a lost cause, just another war in Africa," said fourth-year College student and GuluWalk participant Jenne Chapman.
Others simply have had no exposure to the details of the Ugandan civil war and its ramifications for the children who live in the north.
Conversely, some local residents took an interest in the GuluWalk, well before UNICEF-UVA announced its sponsorship of the event.
"We were going to drive up to Washington, D.C., but then we saw online that there was one right here," Charlottesville resident and GuluWalk participant Andrew Berry said.
Well-informed as to the situation in Uganda, Berry has traveled to there twice and plans on returning again in January to continue his mission work there. He and his wife Christina could only hope to impart such knowledge onto others in the Charlottesville area, who may be unfamiliar with the cause.
"It is easy to be complacent with what's going on," he said. "But when you see it first-hand, you want to get people to understand."
The Berrys came with their two children, ages five and seven. They said they realize the conflict in Uganda is far from being over; moreover, children remain at the heart of the Ugandan crisis -- children just like their own.
"We brought our kids because we want them to be mindful of what's going on in the world, because the kids walking in Gulu are their age," Christina Berry said.
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