Conference Speakers
Adrian Bradbury
Co-founder of GuluWalk, Founder and Director of Athletes for Africa
Adrian Bradbury, co-founder of GuluWalk, is also the founder and director of Athletes for Africa, a charitable organization that uses the power and profile of sport to educate and engage Canadians in Africa's fight against poverty, famine and disease.
In July, Adrian was among the first of six Canadians to be awarded a Global Youth Fellowship by The Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation. As a Gordon fellow, his work is focused on the United Nation’s ‘Responsibility to Protect’ and developing tools for civil society to engage in this new and vital tool for international invention for humanitarian reasons.
GuluWalk saw Bradbury and co-founder Kieran Hayward take on an innovative and ultimately engaging campaign for the ‘night commuters’. Every night, up to 40,000 children living in rural northern Uganda would walk into urban centres to sleep in relative safety and to escape the rebel army. To stay home would mean risking abduction and life as a child soldier, sex slave or even death.
To raise awareness for these victims of an all but forgotten 20-year civil war, they spent 31 days conducting their own ‘night commute’. Every evening in July of 2005 they walked 12.5 km into downtown Toronto to sleep in front of city hall. After about fours hours sleep they made the trek home at sunrise, all while continuing to work full-time and attempting to maintain their usual daily routine.
GuluWalk started as an attempt tell this story to Canadians. It has grown into an urgent, impassioned worldwide movement for peace that resulted in GuluWalk Day, Saturday, October 22, 2005, where 38 cities around the world walked in solidarity for these courageous kids.
In 2006, 82 cities in 15 countries participated in GuluWalk Day and together raised over $500,000 for rehabilitation, training and health support programs for the children of northern Uganda.
For the continuing efforts of GuluWalk, Bradbury earned a 2005 Planet Africa award and was recognized as a ‘Newsmaker of the Year’ by Maclean's magazine.
He lives in Toronto, Canada with his wife Kim and their two sons Isaac (6) and Owen (3).
For more information please visit www.guluwalk.com.