Child Soldier

Child Soldier, originally uploaded by momentswithmichelle.

My first exposure to child soldiers was doing the 30-Hour-Famine as a student in high school. World Vision was talking about creating rehabilitation camps for children who had been forced to fight in violent wars. About a decade later I found out about Invisible Children and their movement to create awareness and stop child soldiers in Uganda.

Last year I read the book "Long Way Gone" which was an autobiography by a child soldier. It was powerful and I read it with different eyes. You see I was aware that I might be spending some time in the DRC, a country with a huge track record for child soldiers.

Sure enough there are children living in the Keredi slum who are former soldiers. This boy, Just, came to us asking if he can please join the school to begin getting an education. He formerly fought as a soldier in a rebel army in Congo.