Reunion 09!
Mariatu has a dream. During the three years she spent at the Amputee Camp for war-wounded people in Aberdeen, in the outskirts of Freetown, Sierra Leone, she developed close bonds with the other young people who had suffered as she had the atrocity of a brutal civil war. She and many others credit part of their emotional healing to a theatre troupe created in the camp by Sierra Leoneon Victor Gbegba. Mariatu and the others danced and sang, told stories and generated tremendous hope and forgiveness that was needed in the country. Presently, twenty amputees from Aberdeen live in North America. Mariatu wants to be reunited with them, and some of the others that have remained in Sierra Leone.
On a shoestring budget, Victor has kept the theatre troupe alive.
In the summer of 2009, with the help of New York writer and storyteller Laura Simms, Cameron Douglas, Kadi and Abou Nabe, Dr. Beth Hedva, psychologist and Canadian Chair of the Association of Trauma Outreach and Prevention, and award-winning journalist Susan McClelland.… and others who will come on board over the next year… Mariatu’s dream of reuniting her friends from the camp now living in North America and some of her friends from Sierra Leone, including Victor, can become reality.
The goal is to hold a 10-day retreat in New York City with invited musicians, actors, expressive arts/psycho-drama therapists and other professional healers, and renew the theatre troupe. The young people can perform for the public and at the United Nations. They can become spokespersons for the power of peace, resilience and forgiveness.
The goal is also to film the performance and the stories of the youth themselves, and create a curriculum guide “Armed for Peace” (working title) for teachers and students. This guide will be available for elementary and high school level students on the topics of war and Africa, healing through the performing arts and peacekeeping, and hopefully be used alongside the documentary film, The Children Time Forgot (working title) and Mariatu’s book, The Bite of the Mango.
Many say that the 11-year civil war in Sierra Leone, which ended in 2002, was one of the bloodiest of the 20 th century. In this awful war children were drugged up, and forced to maim, rape and kill other children.
Aberdeen’s theatre troupe performed on such topics as HIV/AIDS and reconciliation. In one skit, some of the amputees acted out the roles of child soldiers, telling stories of their betrayal and hurt, and linking arms with the amputees in a bold display of forgiveness.
In April 2007 Mariatu went a step further. She and fellow countrymen Ishmael Beah, author of A Long Way Gone, Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, hugged and held each other. They are an example for all of us of the power of love and the potential to go beyond revenge and hatred.
The victims of war and trauma want to be heard. When the children from Aberdeen unite it create a message of hope and reconciliation that can inspire us all.
LAUGH, DANCE AND SING ALOUD WITH THEM!
For more information about the reunion, please contact Cameron Douglas,
cameron@wuomi.ca.