Gulu Walk - History of GuluWalk

History of GuluWalk

Adrian Bradbury and Kieran Hayward first heard the stories of the night commuters of northern Uganda in the spring of 2005. They read 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 21-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 morning in July 2005, Adrian and Kieran walked 12.5 kilometres into downtown Toronto to sleep in front of city hall. At sunrise, after about four 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.

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. This was believed to be impossible because of the magnitude of the situation faced by the children of northern Uganda. Instead, Adrian and Kieran walked to tell these children's story and draw attention to their plight.