Armed & Innocent

I've been in New York now for 3 months and this was the second event Refugee International and Advance Event I have attended. This one was titled 'Armed and Innocent'. We heard from Ishmael Beah, a guy who is about my age and originally from Sierra Leone and who was used as a child soldier. He spoke of the effect of being a child and being forced to kill and being drugged with cocaine, gun powder, and speed, to stay awake and fight for longer. He spoke about the effect that killing had on his outlook on the world. He then spoke about being taken away by UNICEF and placed in a rehabilitation camp where not only did he have to rehabilitate from the drugs, but he had to learn to deal with the horror that he had been involved in. He then spoke about how he had been brought to New York to be schooled at the United Nations School. He spoke about how he enjoyed creative writing and now has a B.A in Political Science. This event made me feel insignificant, I find it incredibly difficult to comprehend what he went through. I took away from this event a strong desire to do something more to help. I hope now that I use that motivation do do something helpful.

Anyway he is having a book published in Feb 2007 about what he went through ... Check it out.

The night finished with a couple of quiet drinks with Phoebe, Sal, and a few of the Refugees International people.

A nice night, that gave me a new perspective.