Gloria Laker Aciro, who cut her teeth covering the civil war in her native Uganda, is director of the Peace Journalism Foundation of East Africa.
Gloria Laker Aciro was a teenager when war upended her family’s life in Northern Uganda. The Lord's Resistance Army, led by the infamous Joseph Kony, were known for their brutality, and for kidnapping children and making them child soldiers or child brides.
As a young displaced person, Aciro became a journalist so the world would know about the suffering in Northern Uganda: The abductions, killings, the ambushes, the destruction. But after a few years, she wondered if focusing on bloodshed was the right approach. What if journalists like her could help bring peace to the country?
Today, Aciro is director of the Peace Journalism Foundation of East Africa. Peace Journalism -- as you might remember from one of our previous episodes -- is when editors and reporters make choices that improve the prospects for peace. She covers peace and conflict, refugee issues, and the environment, and trains journalists around East Africa in peace journalism.
Aciro was a finalist for the 2022 Women Building Peace Award given by the United States Institute of Peace. And in 2019, she received a Golden Jubilee Medal awarded by Ugandan President Yoweri, for her coverage of the LRA conflict and her contributions to current peace efforts in Northern Uganda.
Aciro sat down with Making Peace Visible Education Director Steven Youngblood to reflect on her decades in the field in Uganda, and the real impact of peace journalism in the face of war and gang violence.
Music in this episode by Xylo-Ziko and Joel Cummins.