Perspectives and Responses
Ododo Wa community dialogues tracks perspectives on and responses to the Ododo Wa traveling exhibit. The exhibit aims to gain an international presence. It inspires cross-border dialogues about gendered violence in conflict. Though the exhibit’s subject matter is relevant in global contexts, it also centres place-based knowledge, experience, and struggles for justice. This path starts with place-based knowledge and perspectives emerging from community dialogues. It features quotes, original illustrations, and audio recordings that place Ododo Wa in its regional context.
Place-Based Perspectives
Nature is an important feature in dialogues surrounding the Ododo Wa exhibit. Presenters and the audience referenced seeds, trees, grass, and animals during the events. In the audio recording below, paired with an original illustration by CSiW’s student Lorenzo Serravelle, Evelyn Amony draws on a local saying to explain her worldview as a survivor of abduction and forced marriage in war. Amony is speaking in Acholi and Grace Acan is translating in English.
During his presentation at the Uganda National Museum, Dr. Chris Dolan, director of Refugee Law Project and CSiW project partner, linked the traveling exhibit to a seed and drew links between war in northern Uganda, the illegal logging of the Beyo trees in the region, and the hope that Beyo seeds represent:
A local saying about fighting elephants was echoed in presentations and audience comments. As one audience member stated at the Uganda National Museum:“There is a tree in northern Uganda called ‘Beyo.’ She’s the subject of a lot of discussion at the moment because it is being stripped out of its environment by illegal loggers. It is a tragedy. Beautiful, big trees, one hundred years old—all of that. And the only hope there is that the seed of the Beyo, which is less than the size of my thumbnail—so these seeds give rise to enormous trees, very high. So the traveling exhibit is modest but it is a seed for a much bigger conversation.”
Grace Acan also shared this saying in her presentation to differentiate the experiences of boys and girls in war. Drawing on A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by former child soldier Ishmael Beah of Sierra Leone, Acan recalled her experience in captivity when boys often had to fight in the battlefield while girls were forced to run for their lives to survive gunfire during battles. In this audio recording, paired with an original illustration by CSiW student Lorenzo Serravelle, gendered experiences of children in war are evident.“you know they say, ‘women are the pillars of the world.’ But, we forget the fact that during wars, [...] these women, the pillars, suffer more than even the branches. […] As you say that, ‘When two elephants are fighting, the grass suffers the most.’ So, realize when there is war, the men are the ones fighting and the women and the children suffer the most” (Community Dialogue, Uganda National Museum, 6 December 2019)
Follow the paths through perspective by clicking one of the options below or click: Begin with "Survivors."
Sources
- Audio recordings and quotes featured on this page are drawn from the 23 October 2019 "Ododo Wa: Stories of Girls in War" CMHR launch and the 6 December 2019 "Ododo Wa: Ododo pa anyira ikare me lweny" traveling exhibit launch at the Uganda National Museum. If you are interested in reviewing the transcripts, please email your request to csiwproj@yorku.ca.
- The original drawings featured on the page have been made by CSiW undergraduate student researcher Lorenzo Seravalle