Over the past few years, most of my research and conversations
have been with Canadian and American veterans, but several years ago, I learned
the story of a young Liberian man named Morris living in the Buduburam Refugee
Camp in Ghana. Morris’s story (told in When
Blood and Bones Cry Out by John Paul Lederach and Angela Jill Lederach) is another
example of the ways that farming and gardening can provide an important outlet
for healing and support to many former combatants.
Becoming a Child Soldier
When Morris was 13, his father was murdered by rebels, and soon
after Morris became a child soldier in the Liberian civil war. Later he also
trained other child soldiers to fight in Sierra Leone’s civil war. Eventually,
when struck by the realization that his fighting had turned him into an empty
shell and that he no longer felt human, Morris escaped to the Buduburam Refugee
Camp. As part of his own healing—from both his roles as victim and perpetrator
in the Liberian civil war—and to give back to the community in the refugee
camp, Morris assembled other child soldiers also living in the camp, and the
youngsters built a farm together.
Farming Together
Today, approximately 200 former child soldiers grow and harvest
fruits and vegetables in the camp. All of them, including Morris, continue to
carry the stigma of their former roles as combatants and many others in the
refugee community continue to see them as rapists and murderers. Accordingly,
the healing and recovery process for these young people is anything but easy.
They have lived through horrific violence, and many have committed unimaginable
acts. As Morris remarked, “It is so hard . . . All you have in
your mind is violence. You have been living in violence for so
long . . . It doesn’t matter where you are. It’s embedded in
you. And it is creative. You can do unimaginable things, terrible things with
this creativity, because you have seen so much violence. It takes willpower to
transform that. Some of us are working hard to change.”
And so as they work to change themselves, and to overcome the
community stigmatization, the former child soldiers continue to work the land
and work toward their own healing. The youths find comfort in both their
relationships with one another and in cultivating new life together, and carry
hope that the others in the refugee community will see that they have the power
to change, to do good, and will one day accept them again into the community.
References:
Lederach, John Paul, and Lederach, Angela Jill. (2010). When Blood and Bones Cry Out: Journeys through
the Soundscape of Healing And Trauma. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
