Please join us for a special film screening followed by Q&A with
Guest of Honor
AMBASSADOR ADONIA AYEBARE
Permanent Representative of Uganda to the UN
Panelists
MATT STAUBLE
Founder and Producer, Stauble Media
TABITHA MPAMIRA
EDJA Founder and Director
DR. DANIELA LIGIERO
Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer, Together for Girls
JEN SHORE
Executive Director, Focus for Health
SHARI KARNEY
Founder and President, Roar as One
Moderator
DR. SARAH McCUE
Chief Operating Officer, Nyaka AIDS Orphans Project
6:00 p.m. | Zoom Discussion with Q+A
One Motorcycle.
One Cell Phone.
One Social Worker.
One Legal Advocate.
One Victor . . . was enough to start change.
VICTORS is a powerful film that allows the world to see the inspirational story of one organization’s fight against sexual violence in rural Uganda.
Situated between the lush green hillsides of western Uganda, bordering the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, EDJA is a grassroots organization that has emerged to support orphans of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which left 1.2 million children without parents.
The film follows the origin of EDJA, a program of the Nyaka AIDS Orphans Project, the cornerstone NGO in Western Uganda. Faced with unique and harrowing obstacles in communities heavily impacted by HIV/AIDS, and without prior infrastructure to support sexual assault victims, the core members of EDJA continue their mission.
The Nyaka Project supports an estimated 60,000 orphans and vulnerable children, providing education, food, healthcare and homes for many as they ascend to become learned young adults and professionals. Starting from next to nothing, the Project has also grown to provide education, clean water, medical services and stick clay homes for grandmothers that now care for these special children.
But in 2015, despite all the challenges these children must overcome, Nyaka learned that two young students were victims of rape and sexual assault, even contracting HIV. Immediately, a courageous trio of victors, led by Tabitha Mpamira, began to move day and night to protect these young girls. Even with their own challenges to overcome, these heroes found purpose and healing through their shared endeavor.
Still operating with only a single motorcycle and cell phone, EDJA's story is a transformational movement of sensitization, self-healing, and activism. As a heartfelt message emerging from a close local community into the world, VICTORS offers a reflection of the devastating reality for young survivors of sexual assault in Nyakagyezi — and the inspirational people who created a path out from them.
Please watch this compassionate film using the special link and password (see above) — and then join us for an online Zoom discussion about this compassionate film, with EDJA Founder and Director Tabitha Mpamira and our other special guests.
Guest of Honor
AMBASSADOR ADONIA AYEBARE
Ambassador Adonia Ayebare is an Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Uganda at the United Nations New York. He has been Senior Adviser Peace and Security at the African Union Permanent Observer Mission at The United Nations New York. He also served as the Deputy Permanent Representative and Charge' d'Affaires a.i. of Uganda to the United Nations. He also served as the Director of the Africa Program at International Peace Institute a New York based think-tank. Ambassador Adonia Ayebare is a career, Journalist by training and practice, he was a journalist and has published for major regional and international publications.
The ambassador has practical experience in conflict prevention and mediation. He has worked with mediation teams on Burundi, Somalia and Sudan for over ten years. He served as Head of Mission with the rank of ambassador in Rwanda and Burundi from 2002-2005 and subsequently became principal adviser and special envoy of Uganda to the Burundi peace process. As Uganda held the chairmanship of the Burundi peace initiative, he worked closely with South African and Tanzanian mediators, as well as with Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza and his predecessors. He was recently requested to assist the Uganda ruling party the NRM and the opposition FDC to work on the dialogue to institute reforms and reduce political tension in the country.
Ambassador Ayebare is a holder of two Masters Degree from Long Island University, New York and Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, and a certificate in International Security from Kennedy School Harvard University. He has two Doctorates from Indiana University, with residence at the United Nations New York and Rutgers University.
MATT STAUBLE
Matt Stauble grew up exploring and photographing New England and is now a commercial photographer based out of Brooklyn, New York. In 2015, he was invited to visit Uganda to share his photography skills with The Nyaka Aids Orphans Project. Falling in love with the place and the people, and seeing how his photos helped raise both awareness and funds for the organization, Matt decided to return every year since. Witnessing Tabitha Mpamira step up to combat sexual assault in the area inspired Matt to recruit his friend and filmmaker, Joe Foster, to document the work being done. The story of EDJA, and the film “VICTORS” shows how when a few people stand up for what’s right, it can have a massive impact on the lives of so many.
TABITHA MPAMIRA
Tabitha Mpamira has dedicated her life to serving and protecting the populations most vulnerable to sexual and gender-based violence. She has been open about being a survivor as an eleven-year-old, which fundamentally changed her perspective and gave her intimate knowledge of the pain and trauma caused by sexual assault. This experience propelled her to pursue a Doctor of Psychology (PhD) focused in Clinical Psychology specializing in sexual trauma. As the founder of EDJA, she is a pioneer in bringing this healing and support to remote areas of Uganda. Her belief in advancing the rights of women around the world encourages her to continue fighting for those who have been silenced. Tabitha’s work has been recognized by Global Citizen, where she won the People’s Choice Award in 2018. She has been invited to the Vatican, TEDx Oakland, and the UN to speak about the urgency of the work to end sexual violence.
DR. DANIELA LIGIERO
Dr. Daniela Ligiero is the Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of Together for Girls, a global, public-private partnership dedicated to ending violence against children, especially sexual violence against girls. The partnership includes five UN agencies, the governments of the United States and Canada, several private sector organizations and more than 20 country governments in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, working together to generate comprehensive data and solutions to this public health and human rights epidemic. Dr. Ligiero also serves as the Chair of the Executive Committee of the Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children. Before she joined Together for Girls, she served as the Vice President of Girls and Women’s Strategy at the UN Foundation and developed the foundation’s gender integration strategy. In addition, she spent over five years at the U.S. Department of State where she led the integration of gender issues into all foreign policy and investments in global health.Dr. Ligiero also served in leadership roles at UNICEF, the World Bank and the U.S. Senate, and has worked directly with survivors of sexual assault in a variety of settings. She is also a survivor of sexual violence herself, and has been speaking publicly about her story for the last decade. She earned her doctoral degree in counseling psychology from University of Maryland, College Park.
JEN SHORE
Jen Shore joined the Focus for Health team in January 2019. Jen has spent most of her career in the field of human services, specifically working with high-risk populations and people with disabilities. Throughout the years, she has incorporated her interest in wellness and nutrition into her career. Jen has partnered with various organizations throughout the last 25 years and has written numerous cook books and wellness manuals geared towards people with disabilities as well as WIC and SNAP recipients. In recent years, she has become an advocate for those who have experienced intimate partner violence and childhood sexual abuse, with a focus on changing the court system to protect victims from future abuse.
SHARI KARNEY
Shari Karney is an incest and child rape survivor who advocates internationally for all child sex abuse survivors. She is an attorney, activist, and speaker. She created a model law in California that passed unanimously to give survivors of child sexual abuse justice. She is currently working with the US Congress to pass national legislation to ensure justice for survivors of child abuse called, the “Karney USOL Act. (Karney Uniform Statute of Limitations Act). Shari is the founder and president of Roar as One, a non-profit that seeks “Justice for Survivors.” A movie was made about Shari’s life, called, “Shattered Trust: The Shari Karney Story.”
Moderator
DR. SARAH McCUE
A well-known advocate for the innovative use of information and communication technologies in developing countries, Dr. Sarah McCue is the author of several technical books and a social entrepreneur. She is founder of BluWorld, launched in collaboration with Google and Cisco Foundation to provide opportunities to youth in developing countries; co-founder of The Remembering Site, a memoir-writing platform to write and preserve the stories of our elders; and is founder of Women with 2020 Vision to empower women through online mentoring, initially funded by the Elon Musk Foundation. She has served the United Nations as manager of the United Nations Development Program Information and Communications Technology for Development practice; Panel of Advisers to the United Nations Global Alliance for Technology and Development; World Bank senior partnership adviser for the technology industry; senior adviser to the United Nations International Trade Centre as well as consultant to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, United Nations Industrial Development Organization, and World Bank.
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