The Gideon Foundation Against Child Sacrifice is currently located in the same courtyard as a secondary school in Soroti, Uganda. So I suggested that the Gideon Foundation speak to the students about human sacrifice to see if any of them would be interested in starting a student group. There is also a student group in Kampala that advocates against human sacrifice. Some of the students in this group are featured in the documentary, SACRIFICED. I thought that it would be good if the Gideon Foundation speak to students not only because their office is located within the courtyard of a school but also to see if anything could come out of it whether it be a student group or a new project idea to advocate against human sacrifice.

So on July 12, 2011, the Gideon Foundation volunteers and I spoke to students at Soroti Central Secondary School about human sacrifice and the work of the Gideon Foundation. The outline to the presentation is here:

Gideon Foundation Secondary School Presentation Outline

The students, about over 50 students, were asked discussion questions about their knowledge of human sacrifice and we also played the documentary, SACRIFICED to the students using my laptop. We then broke the students up into groups and asked them to discuss if and what they would like to do to stop human sacrifice. Each group picked a group leader and then each of these group leaders presented their group’s findings: (will post link to video of these presentations soon)

I was very interested in the responses of these students in particular because the head of the late Among was found over a fence that is just steps away from the school’s courtyard. Also one of the founder’s of the school is Santos Labeja who lost his son to child sacrifice.

What stood out for me from this presentation were the students who were really interested and passionate about trying to advocate against human sacrifice. These student leaders could really help to motivate other students to advocate against human sacrifice and could also help the Gideon Foundation to further its outreach.

We passed around a sign-up sheet for students who were interested in forming a student group and many students signed up, over 40. The Gideon Foundation is planning to meet again with these interested students at the beginning of the next school year since vacation has started for students now.

At the end of the presentation we explained how the Gideon Foundation is holding a drawing contest where students can submit a drawing against child sacrifice. The student(s) of the winning design will then have the opportunity to paint his/her design on a wall(s) at the school. The other students who submitted designs would then have the opportunity to help this student to complete his/her mural. I had completed a project like this when I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mali but there I had students draw a design against female genital mutilation (FGM). The mural that the students had painted against FGM was very well-received and is still there today.

The Gideon Foundation volunteers plan to continue speaking to schools and would like to also include primary schools as well. They would first like to target all of the schools in Soroti and then expand to other districts. They would also like to continue holding the mural painting contests with the schools that they present at but then the issue then becomes money to buy the materials to paint these murals and then transportation costs to visit these schools as the Gideon Foundation currently has no funding source. The cost to paint 1 mural amounts to about 20 US dollars.

I will write about the results of the drawing contest and the subsequent painting of 2 murals against child sacrifice in my next blog or so.

Photo 1: Showing the documentary, SACRIFICED to students using my laptop

Photo 2: Gideon Foundation volunteer, Esther Ocom speaking to students

Photo 3: Students during the presentation

Photo 4: Students working in groups

Photo 5: Gideon Foundation volunteer, Dorothy Akol, presenting to students