I had the honor of translating a human rights conference by Tim Bowles in Rome last weekend and I still shudder when I think back to images that were projected.
Tim Bowles is an American lawyer who is working on a project called "Africa Leadership Campaign" involving Liberia, Sierra Leone, Togo and other African countries devastated by horrific wars that we have heard vaguely about the media, including reports of local news and gossip.
For those who read English, here you can find a description of the countryside and a very moving video:
http://www.africanleadershipcampaign.org/
The project is actually very simple. The idea is to teach the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for young people in these countries because it is only giving them a thorough- on these basic principles will be possible to create the mutual respect that can lead to peaceful coexistence.
When he left for Africa, Tim knew he was to address land plagued by enormous difficulties, but certainly did not expect the horror stories that had to listen to those guys every day and that have so filled the mind to leave little room for anything else.
lot of these guys were recruited by rebel armies, drug, weapon and sent to kill their friends, people in their village, their own families. A 12 or 13 years, had his hands cut off, tortured and killed hundreds of people in cold or had witnessed these massacres unarmed seems like a nightmare that never ends.
When the war ended, they continued to live in violence because it was the only law they knew.
Learning what is human rights and the responsibility that each right carries with it gave the students contacted by Tim a new purpose in life, a way to redeem himself from the bestial state in which they were sunk, because horror is not repeated again.
I had tears in my eyes listening to those stories. I wept for the innocence lost, stolen baby, for the guilt they felt that, for the dignity they had lost and for the sincere efforts which were attempting to retrieve it.
The violence in Africa is on the agenda, not only in the jungle but everywhere. E 'daily bread of single men and women, is the substitute for milk and chocolate for children.
I'm not that far from us, but it looks like another planet or even another time.
I watch our kids play with the playstation and invent baby gangs to kill the boredom and think about what they experienced and the boys are still living there.
The life we \u200b\u200blive it assumes a different perspective ...
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