By Marissa Pollack – Staff Reporter

Jonathan Law’s Model U.N. Club recently welcomed Jane Ekayu, a speaker from Uganda.

Ekayu helps Rwandan victims with counseling and restoring them back to their old selves.

“I have learned to love humanity more, I learned resilience,” Ekayu said. “No matter how heavy the situation that puts you down, you can rise up.”

Ekayu has extensive experience as a child trauma therapist. While working at the Rachele Rehabilitation Centre from 2004-2006, her role was to receive child soldiers returning from captivity, assist them in their physical, emotional, and psychological healing, and facilitate their reintegration back into the community.

In three years, the Centre received over 3,000 child soldiers. Since the Rachele Center closed down in late 2006, Ekayu has continued her work with the children through Children of Peace Uganda.

Ekayu emphasizes a gradual process of forgiveness consisting of four main steps. In order to forgive, she says, one must understand why they should forgive, have the desire to forgive, decide to forgive, and finally begin completing acts of forgiveness

“Her mission was to teach us the healing process and how to forgive and move forward from our pasts,” Model U.N. co-president Sam Rossi said. “Aside from learning that, we were able to ask her questions that specifically pertained to our committees, topics, and countries.”

Ekayu’s visit to Law was organized through a conversation that history teacher Ms. Burns had with Scarlett Lewis, the founder of the Jesse Lewis Choose Love Foundation

“Scarlett mentioned her foundation was sponsoring a presentation by Jane in Connecticut,” Burns said. “They had no speaking engagements scheduled for (that day) and offered to come to Jonathan Law. It was an incredibly fortuitous opportunity for us. I am thrilled Scarlett offered to bring such a distinguished speaker to our students.”

Model U.N. members will soon be attending their annual conference in New York City where they will be representing both Uganda and Rwanda. This special presentation helped the students prepare to speak about the countries with more knowledge.

“Everyone’s questions were so genuine and you could tell that everyone who was there was interested in what she had to say,” Model U.N. secretary Gina DiFederico said. “Being able to speak to someone from Uganda who has real training and experience in dealing with mental illnesses was an incredible experience.”

Ekayu was able to teach the students more than factual information. She left them with important life lessons.

“The guest speaker was so important for the Model U.N. because she spoke to our students in person about how to help people recover from a horrific conflict, psychologically and socially,” Model U.N. advisor Mr. Evanko said. “Her work exemplifies the best of what we hope our students will learn: problem-solving to create a more just, peaceful world.”

There are about 3,500 children at Ekayu’s center with about 12-15 full time staff counselors.

The organization receives no government funding, but the government does check the center’s progress. Most of the money is donated and fundraised by students, friends, and people who want to help make a difference in other’s lives.

“Hearing her speak was such an honor and a privilege,” Rossi said. “Listening to someone who has been all around the world to give speeches to people was a once in a lifetime experience.”

Students were extremely appreciative of this once in a lifetime opportunity.

“I think the most important message that we took from the speaker was forgiveness and that’s what she was teaching about,” Model U.N. co-president Jordan Negron said. “In addition to that even though going to Model U.N. conferences gives you experience and lets you see through other people’s views, I think this is more personalized because it was one-on-one and it was an even more eye-opening experience than what we normally see talking to International kids because of the struggles that her country went through.”