Educate students & community leaders on innovative approaches to international development and empower awareness, collaboration, conversations, and personal growth. Dedicate to the well-being and empowerment of former child soldiers, children born in captivity, and children orphaned by the two decades of armed conflict in northern Uganda.
Acknowledgments
The Fall 2020 Cornell Institute for Public Affairs (CIPA) International Capstone team would like to acknowledge and extend our appreciation to Professor Laurie Miller from Cornell University, Amanya Jerry and Tom Karrel from Global Livingston Institute (GLI), and Jane Ekayu from Children of Peace Uganda (CPU). The GLI and CPU gave us full support and show great flexibility during the project considering the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Professor Miller provided the team with detailed instructions, facilitated smooth communication between the team and the clients, and consistently gave feedback to promote the project.
Executive Summary
Global Livingston Institute (GLI) and Children of Peace Uganda (CPU) worked with the Cornell Institute for Public Affairs (CIPA) 2020 Fall Capstone team to identify the psychological and social challenges faced by the former child soldiers in Uganda, to assess the current needs of former child soldiers and their offspring, including the challenges faced by children born in captivity, and make recommendations to foster a better community re-integration. Due to the continuous effect of the world pandemic during the time of authorship (Fall 2020), also considering the restrictions of budget, the project changed focus from remote focus groups and interviews with teachers and parents to data analysis of previous surveys completed in the CPU/GLI farmer training program. To identify the challenges faced by former child soldiers (FCS) and the gaps between FCS’s needs and what is currently offered, the CIPA Capstone team analyzed qualitative and quantitative data collected by these surveys as well as reports developed by previous capstone teams. This report summarizes the team’s analysis, findings, and conclusions based on the following research question:
“What are the psychological and social challenges faced by children of FCS, born in captivity?”
The CIPA Capstone team originally planned to answer the research question by gathering and analyzing data through in-depth interviews, focus groups, and online surveys before the change of format. The literature review examined the possibility and effectiveness of remote focus groups and provided various tools, which could be adopted for use by the CPU and future CIPA Capstone teams. The literature review includes our team’s findings that: remote qualitative research can be beneficial in terms of budget-saving and gathering information from more voices, as well as avoiding ethical limitations and fostering a more sophisticated research method. Through the review of tools to facilitate remote data gathering, the team found that video conference tools like Zoom and Skype have pros and cons for people to choose from, and the possibility of mobile data collection is discussed due to the unique social-economic background of Uganda. The last section mentions barriers to internet adoption in Uganda that need to be taken into account for future research design.
Due to the current barriers to conducting interviews and focus groups with teachers and parents in Lira remotely, the team decided with CPU and GLI to conduct an analysis of CPU and GLI’s survey of FCS and non-FCS participants in the CPU/GLI agricultural training program. The survey analysis aims at providing a better understanding of the demographics, economic, social, and family circumstances, resources, strengths, and needs of the FCS and Non-FCS participants This information will provide a background for developing and preparing researchers for future research with parents, and teachers, and possibly children through interviews and focus groups.
The CIPA Capstone team found similarities as well as important differences among the FCS and non-FCS respondents. The most striking findings are that food shortage is very obvious in the FCS group’ they often worry about the food shortage in their households and have to eat a limited variety of foods. Given the lower income of the FCS respondents, the FCS group reported spending more money on food and less money on agriculture. Most of the FCS respondents believed that the community is supportive in providing living material and emotional support. Most of them reported needing financial support to generate income in the future or to start a small business.
Based on our survey analysis and review of remote research methods, the CIPA Capstone team provides the following recommendations for GLI and CPU to fill in the gaps existing in the FCS’s needs and what is currently offered, to foster a better community re-integration. We suggest that GLI and CPU continue improving the lives and socioeconomics of FCS by developing possible fundraising schemes for FCS to start small businesses. We also recommend providing additional psychological support.
For future research, we recommend including more FCS respondents in future surveys, interviews, and focus groups to exclude sample biases. For the next phase of the project, which will more closely examine the challenges faced by children born in captivity, the teachers’ survey (see Appendix), should include more questions regarding the differences between FCS and Non-FCS families and children as a possible way to better understand the two groups’ situations. The CIPA Capstone team also provides the survey tool for teachers groups that are designed in an online survey format, which we hope will be conducted by a future Capstone team.
Introduction
The 2020 Fall Capstone team partnered with the Global Livingston Institute (GLI) and Children of Peace Uganda (CPU) to plan for research, including refining and conducting surveys of parents and teachers in Lira, Uganda to understand the psychological, social, and other challenges faced by former child soldiers, and their children. Global Living Institute is a non-profit organization that aims at educating students and community leaders on innovative approaches to international development and empowering awareness, collaboration, conservation, and personal growth (Global Livingston Institute, n.d.). Children of Peace Uganda is a non-profit organization in Lira Uganda that is dedicated to the well-being and empowerment of former child soldiers, children born in captivity, and children orphaned by the two-armed conflicts in northern Uganda (Children of Peace Uganda, n.d.).
The focus of this fall’s Capstone project was to additionally explore how participation in the GLI/CPU programs in Lira contributes to successful FCS community reintegration. The team also wanted to know more about the gaps between the needs of the children of FCS and the availability of the programs that are offered to support their development in school and the community.
