“I feel special,” says Betty, former child soldier at 13.

When I travelled to northern Uganda over the summer, a former child soldier named Betty greatly inspired me. 

Abducted by the LRA rebels at age 13, Betty was raped before getting her first period. She was forced to be a child soldier and sex slave to a commander for the next 9 years. She finally escaped but had to hide among dead bodies to conceal herself, further traumatizing her. “It haunts me to this day, and I’m still not able to conceive,” she told me.  

Betty was on the verge of suicide when she joined a GRG trauma counseling project. “But now I’ve become a trauma counselor with GRG. It has made me feel special.” Donate now to help former child soldiers like Betty. She moved me to tears and has inspired me since.

Betty is part of a GRG trauma counseling and livelihoods project of 40 former child soldiers and community members in a remote part of N Uganda close to the South Sudan border, Madi Opei. 

“Becoming a counselor has given me perspective, and now I can relate to other people with the same trauma and help them. I’m also farming with the GRG group. We also sing and dance together. I’m getting used to seeing things from a different perspective,” she told me. 

Please consider donating to help Betty and people like her. We help rehabilitate over 400 people like her on $40,000 a year TOTAL, bringing them back from the brink in an area severely traumatized by war.  

We need your help to continue these projects, to provide trauma counseling and seeds & training to former child soldiers & refugees. Some of our grants have run out, and we may have to curtail projects this year. Please consider donating to help us reach our goal of raising $10,000, so we can keep these critical projects alive.

Thank you again for all of your support.