We arrived in San Francisco at 4:45 pm on Monday April 19th to interview a professor from UCSF named Lynn Ponton. Dr Ponton has a degree in child psychiatry. She has traveled all over the world trying to help families that need help because their children were exposed to the life of a child soldier. These children have mental problems because of what they have seen or done as a soldier. One of the most common mental illnesses is PTSD also known as posttraumatic stress disorder. This disorder comes from seeing things that one usually would not do or see; one’s brain goes in to a shock and has illusions. Most of the time these kids can not get out of this illness because what they have seen was so bad that it just affects them their whole lives. The reason children are used as soldier is because children are easy to manipulate, cannot fight back, and people don’t expect a child to be able to fight or use a weapon. These kids are not just being used in Africa they are being used all over the world.
We were received really well. I got a lot of information from Dr. Ponton. Dr Ponton is a very nice lady and was very welcoming and had great information for us. She treated us very respectfully and tried to answer our questions as best as she could.
What I learned that I expected to learn was that children suffer physically and mentally, and that their families are suffering. What I also learned was that the adult members of conflict groups make children become soldiers and don’t care if they die. These kids are treated really badly, don’t have any rights, and are often beaten repeatedly for sometimes not doing the right thing.
What surprised me was that child soldiers are all over the world not just in Africa. I was also surprised that terrorists use kids to perform terrorist acts. I didn’t know that in Israel there are camps and villages to help recuperate child soldiers. In these camps, organizers slowly ease children back into a regular life instead of forcing it back upon them and possibly causing more harm to their psyche.
Overall I was very happy with our interview. It was short, only 30 minutes long, but very helpful. This interview opened up my mind to not just focusing on child soldiers in Africa but on child soldiers worldwide.
