The Original GuluWalk

Adrian Bradbury and Kieran Hayward first heard the stories of the night commuters of northern Uganda in the spring of 2005. They read unbelievable accounts of children — as many as 40,000 — walking from their rural villages into the town of Gulu and other urban centres to sleep in relative safety and avoiding abduction by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) for use in the country’s 20-year civil war.

In the midst of this conflict, over 1.7-million people have been displaced, on top of thousands of night commuters. These displaced persons have been forced into abhorrent conditions in camps where hundreds of people are dying every week because of a lack of clean water, food and medical care.

The plight of the children sparked the idea for GuluWalk, a 31-day night commute in support of these children. Every evening in July of 2005, Adrian and Kieran walked 12.5 kilometers into downtown Toronto to sleep in front of city hall. At sunrise, after about fours hours sleep, they made the trek home. Both men continued to work full-time and attempted to maintain their usual daily routine, to mimic the lifestyle endured by the Acholi children of northern Uganda.

Over the 31 days they walked 775km in 154 hours 18 minutes and 872,739 steps, and there was everything from front-page news to freezing cold nights to face-to-face rat encounters (no, not a typo). You can read the daily blog of their month-long commitment by clicking here. You can also see exclusive photos by Jing-Ling Kao from the entire month here.

The intention of the GuluWalk was not to attempt to replicate the terror, fear and uncertainty of the real ‘night commuters’, who walk for their lives every single day. You simply can’t. Adrian and Kieran walked to tell their story and draw attention to their plight.

What started as an attempt by two people to better understand the ordeal of the children of northern Uganda, has now grown into an impassioned worldwide movement for peace.