Several of the past and present Peace Fellows keep blogs. We will put links to any that we know about, on Fellows' individual web pages. Please let us know of any we have missed. Thank you.
JULIANA AMAL OBONYO
UGANDA
Sponsored by: The Rotary club of Gulu, District 9200.
Country of citizenship: Uganda
Language proficiency: English, Luo, Karimojong, Ateso, Kiswahili and Spanish (beginner)
Biography: With six years of experience implementing education, human rights, and conflict management programs in Uganda and southern Sudan, Ms. Juliana Amal Obonyo, comes with a range of academic and field based ideas into the Rotary class for this year. “This fellowship is totally life changing, through it, I will be able to continue involvement with conflict and human rights related issues from a totally professional and varied lens. The first time I learnt about this fellowship, I was not as competitive as was expected, though I never made in that year (2007), I hanged in there, pursued another one year course and continued my work with peace building. This year, it was totally incredible, it was me they were looking for, and the news of being awarded the fellowship was one of those moments when you can’t help smiling, even unconsciously. I am so happy I am here, and will continue to be part of the phenomenal change makers-change that is contagious. I never had a childhood because I always matured at a faster rate due to the challenges in my society. I worked so hard, dug large portions of land to produce food for my family-today I am told that is child labor. My parents always interrupted me from play, either to go make a meal, baby sit my siblings or go fetch some water from the well, or firewood from the bush. Today, I have been made to understand that, it was my right to play and that, that work was child labor. Many times I have had to witness armed violence, including getting interrupted from the learning process whenever our school occasionally turned into a battle field among the Karimojong cattle rustlers, we always took to our heels and ran back home or got lost amongst homes and bullets for days. This was a typical lifestyle and seemed part of life as I grew up. I never knew that on the other side of the world, there were no gun shots, never imagined children playing as long as they liked or children not doing the kind of work I did. Flash backs from my early growing up days give me rude reminders of the childhood I never had. Even in my ‘assumed’ childhood, I always had a dream of having an excellent life, drive the best cars, have the best estates, and the best of the best of anything that I could ever imagine. As I continued to grow and witness realities of life, including knowing that, even quarter a dollar changes another person’s life in a totally incredible way over a range of time, my perspective of good life changed. I got back to my bed, and to dream a meaningful dream. Today, my dream is to facilitate social change amongst people that wouldn’t otherwise realize these changes on their own. That is my passion, and where I have found a connection-to put a smile on a miserable and desperate, face, to renew hope, to give a sense of positive energy and direction, and to mend broken links”
Ms Amal has worked for USAID projects in northern Uganda, where she has gained extensive experience working in conflict and emergency settings. Between 2005 & 2007, she mainstreamed gender issues and implemented peace building activities in the USAID funded Northern Uganda Peace Initiative. She has also coordinated FAWE-Uganda’s female education programs in northern Uganda, where she has worked with, and mentored vulnerable female students, and also worked for child mother ex combatants of the Lord’s Resistance Army rebellion, other child mothers as young as 12 years. Later on, she was elected to the Board, and represented northern Uganda at the FAWE Uganda executive Board of Directors (BoD) for three years, this broadly increased her advocacy and policy making skills in which she identified policy issues affecting girl child education in northern Uganda.
Juliana has also worked as a Consultant on the USAID funded Stability Peace and Reconciliation (SPRING) project in northern Uganda ( Jan-Dec, 2008) in which she, with others designed a framework for implementation of the Access to Justice Component in post conflict northern Uganda. Her extensive consultancy skills in Human rights, education and conflict management has seen her design several program packages for different organizations. She is also a co-founder for KGL consultants, a consultancy firm in northern Uganda that deals with conflict management programs, transitional justice, research and training for clients in Uganda, and neighboring countries. Additionally, she has founded Karamoja Peace and Development Discussion Network (KPDDN), which currently operates on a blog to bring varied perspectives on peace and development in her war ravaged Karamoja region in Uganda. The blog, though in the initial stages can be accessed on: http://www.kpddn.wordpress.com
She has a degree in Social sciences from Makerere University, Uganda, a Post graduate Diploma in Conflict Management and Peace Studies from Gulu University, Uganda. Currently, she is finalizing a Masters degree in International Studies at the University of Connecticut where she is focusing on Human Rights.
“With a degree from Bradford, I will be able to bring a unique and rich outlook into the analysis of conflict and intervention strategies. Obviously, I will gain the skill set needed to design a comprehensive intervention framework that responds to the specific conflict and security needs of the communities in question. My future continued involvement with the Rotary family will help me build a network of people with whom I share the same passion; this essentially is good for future coordination and experience sharing. I cannot thank Rotary enough”