Aga Khan Academy thrills audience with ‘Uganda child soldiers’ play

By James Wanzala

Nairobi, Kenya: Nairobi’s Aga Khan Academy left audience at the Oshwal Centre Auditorium yearning for more as it performed a piece full of mixture of love, hatred and hope about the ‘child soldiers of Uganda’, last weekend.

The Why the Birds Sing to Me drama was about the story of children abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army but later escapes to reunite with families in northern Uganda.

Written by Katherine Liao, a UN doctor and who worked at an IDP camp in Gulu village in northern Uganda, the drama is full of tragedy, love, hatred, betrayal, hope, redemption and healing.

The story captures the community’s great need for healing and reconciliation, prevention of violence against children and promotion of human rights.

It involves among other casts two love birds Treasure (Mary Segero), a school girl, and Innocent (Mwenda Gitonga), a school headmistress, villagers, animals, birds, LRA soldiers, and once abducted and maimed woman Agenorwot among others.

Message for war-tone areas

“While working in a camp with about 1.8 million people in northern Uganda as a doctor, we received many children who had been captured, tortured, maimed, raped and stigmatised and I got the inspiration to write the drama to pass a message of protection of  children rights,” Katherine told Education.

“We have staged the drama in Uganda several times and my husband (Jeffrey Harrison, a music teacher and composer from New Orleans) and I plan to take it to other war-tone African countries to pass the same message,” she added.

In the drama Treasure is abducted at school with her two mates by LRA soldiers who later subject them to child labour. Her boyfriend Innocent tries to rescue her but he is also arrested and recruited in the army.

Later the LRA camp is raided by another army, Treasure rescued but unlucky Innocent remain under captive. Another day, as Innocent tries to escape, LRA leader resurfaces with a gun to recapture Innocent back to the army, but during the scuffle, Innocent snatches the gun from him and shoots him dead. He finally escapes and is reunited with his family. The reunion is marked with songs and dance.

The Oshwal event coordinator Anne Gichohi said it rewards to see so much talent in our students.