The title of this amazing book is the way in which Evelyn Amony preserved her own personal
identity when she was abducted at the age of 11 by the Lords Resistance Army in Northern Uganda in August 1994. She gave her name to the LRA as Betty Ato and was known as that for the next 11 years of captivity and kept her real name secret. In 2005, when Evelyn escaped, she began using her real name again. It has taken a decade of work to produce this autobiography which was published in October 2015 and is just reaching the UK.
Evelyn was forced at the age of 14 to to become one of the wives of Joseph Kony, the leader of the LRA. On release from captivity the women have come together in an organisation called the Womens Advocacy Network and Evelyn was voted to be the Chairwoman. They started with seven members but now have 550 women in 16 groups in four districts of Northern Uganda. All are returnees and in general they are rejected by the communities they return to. The WAN and
Evelyn are partners of Afrinspire and at the Afrinspire Womens Conference in January Evelyn told some of her story, which is too long to give here. Afrinspire selected six ways of supporting the WAN in January 2015 and we have been able to fulfil them all. The women have received a lot of help regarding their human rights but they particularly need support with livelihoods in order to survive and that is the main focus of Afrinspire. Three FAL groups have been started by Rose Ekitwi and Afrinspire has helped to rent land for agriculture for those who are dispossessed of land. If you would like to help these women please donate here.
We are also raising money to help the WAN by selling Evelyn's book for £20 a copy. You can also
borrow a copy and make a donation and then return the book for someone else to read. Please email us to request your book and make a donation. Evelyn's story is a very powerful one.
Comments