About Nalule’s Travels and Adventures: Writing for Survivors in Africa by Dr Helen Liebling
Nalule’s Travels and Adventures is the autobiography of a feminist, activist and researcher who acted against atrocities and abuses perpetrated on conflict survivors of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) and torture to aim to improve survivors’ rights to international health, care, and justice.
Dr Helen Liebling’s early life of disruption and family separation, led to a passion for advocating for the rights of those who survived human rights violations Her first musical trip to Uganda shaped Helen’s life. She developed a love for Africa, her people, traditional music and travel. Enchanting musical stories included wild dancing to 21-key xylophone music in rural Eastern Uganda (Busoga), a chicken on a bus and entertaining in the bars of Kampala. Helen’s travels took her to some of the most beautiful places in the world including African deserts, mountains and waterfalls.
Helen describes the impact of COVID, discovering a love for wild swimming and hopes for the future. Fascinating, emotional, and uplifting this book is a captivating narrative of hardship, resilience, and triumph against the odds, told with passion and clarity by a woman who never gave up!
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Author Bio:
Dr Helen Liebling joined the Inkplotters writers’ group in Leamington Spa shortly before COVID hit. The group set aims for their writing, and she decided to write an autobiography. Firstly, this was to document her life in the hope this would be of interest to others. Secondly, Helen’s mother had died sadly from dementia and was unable to speak during the last few years of her life, and therefore it was important to Helen that she write her experiences while she was still healthy.
Helen has always loved writing and had published academic articles previously. Felicity Hand and Esther Pujolràs-Noguer, Autonomous University of Barcelona, asked her to write a reflective piece for a book chapter regarding her experiences of working with conflict survivors, and Helen really enjoyed this experience. Writing her autobiography helped Helen deal with the isolation of the lock down period during COVID and to express her voice. Helen found the experience of writing about the fun and adventures she had been lucky enough to have, as well as her work with conflict survivors and refugees, to be fulfilling. She found the publishing experience with Aurora to be extremely useful, and this helped to improve the content and produce a book Helen is immensely proud of and that she hopes others will find inspiring.