Sun Sentinel Broward Edition

How children can recover from the horrors of war

In my country, Colombia, since I was old enough to read a newspaper, the headlines talked of bombs demolishin­g entire rural towns, leaving families and children homeless and displaced. These were slightly less horrific images of what I see nowadays happening in Gaza and Israel. In Colombia, the ones causing the suffering were FARC, a now-defunct terrorist group, most of whom have splintered into separate drug-traffickin­g groups. The FARC were as bloody as Hamas. The FARC held war councils among their members in which the verdict included teenagers ordered to shoot one another. It was a morose exercise in testing allegiance­s. The FARC kidnapped policemen and soldiers and kept them chained and exposed to the elements as prisoners of war, for up to 14 years in one case. The FARC locked a bomb around a civilian woman’s neck and watched her face as the timer counted down to her death.

I met Leonor, a former FARC child soldier, in July 2001, when she was two weeks out of the FARC. She was 17 years old. I followed her recovery for nearly two decades. Although Leonor participat­ed in battles, she was a child at heart and a victim. Much of what she went through to heal, with the help of the Colombian government’s rehabilita­tion program, can be applied to children in Israel and Gaza.

When Leonor came out of war depressed and suicidal, her therapists gave her a goal: to fall in love with life. Something as simple as enjoying the taste of ice cream or laughing for a few moments in a swimming pool with others her age were considered a triumph. During this time, Leonor was encouraged to dance and write poetry. One of her proudest moments is performing a dance she choreograp­hed in a theater in Bogota in front of former child soldiers. Art helped her accept that her sadness was justified.

Leonor lived in various group homes with other former teen combatants. Therapists encouraged them to find their individual­ity and express it. One boy had pink hair. A group of boys played basketball at a local park, and with their minds engaged and the camaraderi­e shared with teammates, they forgot for a few hours that most suffered from insomnia. Leonor volunteere­d as a model in a fashion show, and she credits having her makeup and hair done profession­ally as having awoken in her a sense of pride.

The teens I met were desperate to experience a childhood. In a video filmed by the FARC and found by the army, children, as visibly young as 8 years old, can be seen giggling as they are taught maneuver exercises using wooden rifles. They regarded training for war as a game, akin to how our kids respond to laser tag.

Eventually, Leonor returned to school, which gave her hope for a future. As the years passed, she was introduced to different trades, like jewelry-making. Others picked up gardening, farming, carpentry and electrical skills, which to this day have helped them to secure a paycheck.

Throughout this time, Leonor met with mental health profession­als. Their sessions emphasized reuniting with her family. My mom was always in my thoughts, Leonor told me. Yet, she was also aware that her family was conditione­d by her community, and hence by the fabric of her hometown, whose DNA was FARC-centered. Therapy pushed a pause button on her life and gave her perspectiv­e.

The children of Israel and Gaza will need to pause a moment and be given a chance to be children again. Art, dance, creative writing and sports can be an opportunit­y for children who have been through war to fall in love with life again.

Paula Delgado-Kling holds degrees in comparativ­e literature/French civilizati­ons, internatio­nal affairs and creative writing from Brown University, Columbia University and The New School, respective­ly. Delgado-Kling followed the life of a former child soldier in her homeland of Colombia for nearly two decades to create the nonfiction book, “Leonor: The Story of a Lost Childhood.” Visit PaulaDelga­doKling.com.