Name: Miles Friedman

Social Justice Group: Child Soldiers

Date of Fieldwork: January 12, 2018

Name of Organization: The UN

Person (people) with whom I met and their job titles: Fabienne Vinet head of commumications at in the children in armed conflict office

Type of Fieldwork: Tour of Organization

What I did:

For this fieldwork we went to the UN and and listened to a briefing about children in armend conflict. We got a lot of informatin and we watched a video about the topic.

What I learned:

I learned that the only thing that is going to end the use of child soldiers are action plans. A action plan is like a contract that peopel sighn that says that they will do anything on the plan. And the main goal is to get everybody to sign the action plan. I also learned that reintegration is a really big problem. Reintegration is a big problem because after a child is released from being a soldier there is ussouly noting he or she cand do because they live in remote places and often they just join another fighting force before the 3-9 months it takes them to be integrated.

What I learned about Social Justice “work” and/or Civil and Human rights “work” from this fieldwork:

throughout this field work I learned that to get rid of the problem of child soldiers there are many things that need to happen and change. Something that needs to happen is get the world to know about this issue because not many people pay attention to it. For example, we need another Kony 2012. Kony 2012 was a movment that was a viral video that got people to know about child soldiers and take action. I also learned that you have to be devoted to these kids because if just stop helping them after they leave the army they will just go right back so you need to help supply these children with a life after a war becuase all they know is war. This shows that for social justice you need to be willing to spend time on the issue.