Paula Adouch peddles her sewing machine with a lot of vigor and energy as though her life depended on it.

In a room filled with her colleagues both male and female, she works hardest in hopes that she can provide for her children a better life that she did not have.

Adouch’s childhood was cut short when the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels took her captive.

"I lost my whole childhood when I was taken from my home because I had to live in a different place for 13 years. I was separated from my family", Adouch says.

But that is all history to the mother of four. She has taken on duties as the sole breadwinner after returning from captivity with children.

"Life became hard when we came and settled back home. My husband couldn't handle the burden of taking care of us and he abandoned us." Adouch explains adding that She struggled being the breadwinner of her home and her built trauma started to surface.

From 1986 to 2006, the Northern region was ravaged by the LRA insurgency, which was headed by Joseph Kony. The United Nations reports that this war led to the abduction of over 60,000 children.

With the social, emotional, physical, and economic gap caused by two decades of war, the formerly abducted people are now returning to their homes and facing the hard reality of settling in fully.

Adouch is part of a group of other war returnees and former combatants being trained with life skills by Terra Renaissance, a Japan-based NGO working on peace education and rehabilitation of victims of war.

They employ several complex strategies which include programs for community development, access to education, career training, emotional support, and most importantly the reintegration model which involves putting the war returnees into society so that they can live normal lives.

Adouch is one of the many people that have gone through the system of skilling, and emotional support training and benefited from the service.

"A friend of my mother was acquainted with a trainer at the organization and that's how I also managed to join the organization to pursue this course I like", Adouch narrates.

Because those returning to their homes have spent over 20-25 years in captivity, this leaves a gap in the literacy rates since they didn't attain any education while in captivity.

"From 2004-2010 the majority of the formerly abducted people were females and that was the point when the Juba peace talks were going on and the commanders released a lot of the children but from 2012 to now the majority of the returnees are males", Jimmy says.

"We have so far 60% females and 40% males in the organization ", he added.

Terra renaissance offers tertiary skilling to the returnees to help better their lives, For people like Paula having such a chance to have a brighter future for themselves and their families is more than they could ask for,

"I love my job and I work very hard and due to my condition I do my work diligently with hope that things will become better for me and my children," Adouch says.

She also adds that the organization helps her with her children and that's how she sometimes survives sometimes.

"In hopes that I will help stop poverty in my family and get school fees for my children and have a brighter future through the skilling and training I have acquired from the organization when I leave", she added.

Mental health is one of the most affected things among the returnees, the exposure to bloody scenes, torture, rape, and other forms of suffering they have gone through as captives is a wound that no one can heal and the organization strives to help them heal themselves.

"We provide psycho-social reintegration where we train them to build peace within themselves and also with the people around them and the community", Otema says.

"Where we have a special way of treating them using music and dance which helps them heal their memories of their tragic and traumatic memories during captivity so that they find peace mentally", he added.

This method has helped most of the survivors of the dreadful LRA war like Paula to emotionally reintegrate themselves and find comfort in the community.

"After escaping out of captivity I came back home but I didn't know how to control my emotions and anger now I can at least try and keep it calm and not be harsh to people because I used to easily get angry but now I can control the situation without being violent". Adouch narrates.

Despite having the budding desire to make a new life for the survivors of the war, some circumstances are a drag to the organization in accomplishing their mission, and like any organization, some situations are a hindrance to their work.

"Poverty is one of the main hindrances to our delivery because we can train these people to make good furniture and other products but people have no money to buy the big beds which affects their progress as they can get discouraged". Otema said.

"War injuries are another problem where some of them have injuries which require specialized treatment which we can't afford so we sometimes tell them to live with the pain and the advice from the doctors is to not have surgeries because it may result to deaths of the patient or mental illness for those with bullet wounds in the heads near the brain", he added.

There's a need to bring hope to survivors like Paula who have gone through challenges but still keep hoping for the best because much as the LRA war caused harm to their homes they hope for society to accept them back fully and not stigmatize them more.