The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) war, led by Joseph Kony, devastated Northern Uganda for over two decades, peaking between the 1990s and early 2017. For civilians, the war was defined by extreme insecurity; Over 2 million people were forced to abandon their ancestral lands and lived in squalid Internally Displaced Person (IDP) camps, such as the one formerly located at Kweyo Primary School in the city of Gulu. These camps were often overcrowded and lacked basic services, while children faced the constant threat of abduction by rebels to become child soldiers or forced wives. Even after the guns fell silent in 2017, the region has been left to grapple with deep-seated trauma, a fractured social fabric, land disputes, and a significant digital divide that hinders recovery for the next generation.
In the heart of Northern Uganda, a new revolution is taking place. It is not fought with weapons, but with poetry verses and digital inclusion. At Kweyo Primary School, the scars of the past are being overwritten by the Young Peace Voices Hub.
The Peace Journalism Foundation (PJF) is campaigning to create the Kweyo Inclusive Digital Hub. This facility is set to become a sanctuary designed to integrate digital literacy with peacebuilding poetry, specifically targeting children with disabilities (CWD) and youth activists.
Mending Broken Homes Through Inclusive Voices
The conflict didn’t end when the guns fell silent; It moved into homes, leading to land wrangles and domestic violence. For children living with disabilities and early marriages in this post-war landscape, the burden is doubled, as they face both the trauma of the past and social exclusion.
As Sarah Bradfield, PJF’s co-founder, notes, “Peace begins in the heart. In creativity, we transcend biases. By bringing children of all abilities together to write, we bypass the long-held biases we carry from our experiences.”
Breaking the Silence: The Kweyo Inclusive Digital Hub
Kweyo Primary School serves over 700 pupils with few teachers. The PJF’s goal is to acquire 15 desktop computers and high-speed internet to transform small voices into global echoes.
For the school’s Poetry Peace Club, especially those with physical or sensory disabilities, these tools will transform digital storytelling. They will allow a child who may struggle to walk or speak to digitize their peace poetry verses and share them via the Global Peace Poetry Exchange (GPPE).
Voice from Triangle Club members:
The Triangle Club (or Poetry Triangle) is the broader, global vision of the project that connects different regions—specifically Gulu (Northern Uganda), Western Uganda, and South Africa—to create a “triangle” of shared peace-building and activism.
Sixteen-year-old poet and peace architect Isabella Atuhare captures the vision of the next generation of diplomats:
“To live in peace is to choose the path of love, a heart of kindness rising far above. Where forgiveness mends what conflict once tore, we build a world where hate exists no more.”
Ms. Esther Adong, a member of the school management committee and also an old student of Kweyo Primary, said, “Imagine a young girl at Kweyo, typing with one hand, sending a poem titled ‘The Sun After the Rain’ to a student in Cape Town. Her screen becomes a window, and for the first time, her disability is not a wall, but a bridge.”
As the movement grows, young girls in Western Uganda are also joining the chorus against early marriage. One 15-year-old activist, Kayesu, shares her resolve:
“Books, not brides, shall fill my eager hands, I choose the classroom over wedding bands. My future shines, a story yet to be told.”
From Gulu and Western Uganda’s fight against early marriage to South Africa’s struggle against inequality, the Poetry Triangle is forming.
Resilience Through Adaptive Tech
Though the PJF has big ambitions for the digital peace hub, it faces the challenge of securing funding for technology that will allow its leaders to carry out this work.
The drive for inclusion starts at the top. The campaign includes a specific call for adaptive technology for the Director of PJF, Gloria Laker Adiiki Aciro. She is an award-winning peace advocate now living with a significant visual disability. She has voluntarily mentored more than 800 journalists, but currently relies on her children to read her notes. The PJF is working to secure a high-performance tablet with voice-to-text features that will allow Gloria to continue her work.
Beyond the lack of funding, the complex double burden of trauma and exclusion threatens the recovery of northern Uganda’s youth. For children with physical and sensory disabilities, the struggles with land disputes, domestic violence, and the shadow of early marriage are amplified by deep-seated social biases and a lack of adaptive technology, turning what should be a journey of healing into one of isolation.
The Poetry Triangle: A Global Vision
For the PJF’s launch of the poetry project, the school has already provided a spacious classroom for the hub once the computers are purchased. The school is located in a high-strength internet zone, powered by the national grid, and protected 24/7 by professional guards and the vigilant youth of the Abwoch Peace Activists (APA).
Mr. Jela Labela, chairman of the School Management Committee, believes technology is the final bridge: “We are echoing the request for computers to link our poetry and children with disabilities to e-learning and the globe. With these tools, our children, regardless of their physical ability, can share their journey of recovery with the world,” he said.
Once it manages to equip these children with digital tools, PJF aims to ensure that the future of peacebuilding is inclusive, digital, and defined by co-existence, not conflict.
Keywords: Uganda, LRA, Lord’s Resistance Army, war, poetry, peace, tech, digital, hub, internally displaced persons, IDP, conflict, conflict resolution, disabilities, disability, disabled, youth
Senior Mercy Florence
Senior Mercy Florence is a journalist and youth peace activist focusing on girls' rights, GBV, and disability advocacy. She is a 2025 Peace Journalism Award winner.(17) SENIOR MERCY FLORENCE | LinkedIn
