They die, they are maimed, traumatized, broken - all of them future leaders, civil servants, scholars, fathers, mothers and teachers. With them goes the future of their countries and of the world. I will never forget them and what they did for us - I can only hope that confronted by similar circumstances, I would be as generous and take on the noble task of teacher.ĭaily, children like me, like us, around the world, go into cellars and hiding places, into refugee camps or into the army. These young women could not bear to watch the children waste away: they gave us their time and generously shared their imagination, creativity and knowledge with us. Then one day, some young women from my neighbourhood started a "war school." We did not have real classes, but we met occasionally when the days were relatively quiet and we could be children again for a while. Locked inside my house, terrified of the outside world where death could snatch you at anytime, I read endlessly, trying to continuously develop myself.
Schools transformed into bombed-out ghost buildings, vandalized spaces, storerooms for weapons, demarcations of enemy zones and front lines. Instead, our schools became shelters, places where humanitarian aid was distributed.
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Learning how to play, how to pull a pen across paper and how to leave a permanent mark in this world was snatched from us. The fear of being called up to the board to solve a math problem and the excitement of discovering the magic of writing were gone. Rooms that were once covered with our drawings, lingering with giggles and passed notes became empty. One day our pens were dropped, notebooks abandoned, benches deserted. The closure of schools was a sign that something was very wrong. That was the first thing that went when the horrors began. In all of our cases, conflicts stole one of our basic rights as children and young people - the right to education. They stole our innocence, humanity, childhood, families. We know what emergencies are: we have felt them on our skin, they crept into our lives, blew them away, sliced them, fragmented them. I never knew what happened to my teacher - I never saw her again. I left some neatly written essays in the cupboard that was blown apart. My school in Sarajevo was bombed and closed, and in place of the literature classroom wall was an enormous hole from a bomb blast. That was the last book report I did for almost two years of my life during the conflict in Bosnia. I tried hard to concentrate on my homework assignment, worried what the teacher might say the next day. I remember trying to write a book report when I heard the first gunshots of my life sounds that no child, anywhere in the world, should ever hear. She lives in Ireland and works on documentary films.Įmmanuel Jal ( born in Sudan, is a hip hop singer and founder of Gua Africa, dedicated to educating children affected by war and poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. Zlata Filipović, born in Sarajevo, Bosnia is the author of Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Wartime Sarajevo.
Gacu ( formerly called China Keitetsi, was born in Uganda and is the author of Child Soldier: Fighting for my Life.
Grace Akallo, born in northern Uganda is the co-author of Girl Soldier: A Story of Hope for Northern Uganda's Children. Kon Kelei ( born in Southern Sudan is a spokesperson for War Child Holland. By Zlata Filipović, on behalf of the members ofthe Network of Young People Affected by War (NYPAW): Ishmael Beah ( born in Sierra Leone is the author of A Long Way Gone, Memoirs of a Child Soldier.
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