Caption: Ododo Wa – Dusk in Pabo, Uganda
Ododo Wa: Stories of Girls in War is an exhibit at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR). It traces the journey of two girls from Uganda – Evelyn Amony and Grace Acan – who were abducted and held captive for years by a rebel group, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). After their ordeal, Evelyn and Grace discovered the power of using their voices to find healing and seek justice for women who survived captivity with the LRA.
The exhibit is a collaboration of the CMHR, the Conjugal Slavery in War (CSiW) partnership, and the Women’s Advocacy Network (WAN) in Uganda, curated by Ms. Isabelle Mason. It features memory work of Evelyn and Grace, with beautiful photographs, drawings and stories from the collective work of UBC, WAN and CSiW.
With the support of the Ugandan based Justice and Reconciliation Project, Evelyn Amony and Grace Acan have been long-time collaborators with SPPGA Professor Erin Baines, including storytelling projects with survivors, the writing of their memories, Not Yet Sunset: A Story of Perseverance in LRA Captivity, by Grace Acan and I am Evelyn Amony: Reclaiming My Life from the Lord’s Resistance Army, and more recent research on children born of war in the LRA.
Together with Liu Scholar and UBC PhD candidate, Ketty Anyeko, Professor Baines, Evelyn and Grace have worked in collaboration for over a decade, conducting research and activism with survivors of war violence, documenting their stories, seeking recognition and reparation for change, from grass-roots activism, a Petition for Reparation to the Ugandan Parliament, and work with the United Nations on learning from lived experience and an Arria Formula meeting on Children Born of War.
Ododo Wa: Stories of Girls in War runs in the “Level 5 Rights Today” gallery at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights until November 2020. It has also become a traveling exhibit, touring across Uganda in December 2019, before being housed in the National Memory and Peace Documentation Centre in Kitgum, Uganda. The exhibit will soon travel to Sierra Leone, another partner in the CSiW project.
Caption: Evelyn (R), Grace (M) and Erin (L) at the launch of Ododo Wa at the CMHR.
