Patrick Donovan Assembly

Words of survival from Uganda

By Emily Hegedus and Bella Harvey-Cowen

On Wednesday, May 24th the World Cultures students attended a talk by Patrick Donovan, who is a survivor of the genocide in Uganda. These students have been studying world genocide and diving deeper into the tragedies surrounding them. He spoke to them about his experience and answered their questions. Donovan arrived in the U.S at 29 years old after experiencing genocide and years of slavery. He went into detail of the hardships and the pain of losing his parents and village. His home, located in Uganda, was overwhelmed by Idiamin’s military and burned to the ground when Donovan was only 10 years old. Donavan explained that after this tragedy, he and his sister had to flee. During this time, they were captured and had their lives threatened multiple times. The only way they could keep each other alive was to offer themselves into slavery. After being split up for many years, Donovan was adopted by a family from Oakmont. By pure coincidence, his sister had been adopted into the same family. His transition into life in the U.S was a rough one, but he felt it was all worth it in the end. He explained that since the day he arrived in our country, he wakes up with a smile on his face and a positive attitude. One of the students, Lauren Pavlik-Ware, who attended said, “It was amazing to hear his story and everything he went through.” 

The assembly was organized by one of the teachers here at BHS, Mrs. Pagnotta, who has known Patrick Donovan since high school. She described her thoughts on Donovan’s story, “I’ve heard him tell it multiple times, but every time, I take something different away. It reminds me of the saying 'don’t judge a book by its cover', because if I saw Patrick with his positive and grateful attitude, I would never guess what he had experienced.” 

She explained that her students are just finishing their unit on revolutions and hopes that Donovan’s perspective reminds them “how we have to treat everyone’s culture and story with respect.” Mr. Rossi, another World Cultures teacher, spoke of how his students “were very impacted by Patrick’s story. It is something they are going to carry with them.” A third World Cultures teacher, Mr. Facemyre, shared that he “was fascinated by the fact that Patrick came over to this country without any knowledge of the language and attended school as an adult, and how that was part of his acclimatization into the country.” He also noted, “That after going through such a terrible ordeal, it is amazing that he is still smiling and even willing to talk about what happened. I wonder if it is almost therapeutic.” 

The students of BHS were very fortunate to have heard from Donovan. Especially considering that there is little to no information on the genocide he endured. As his time at Burrell High School came to an end, he left the students with these words, “Be grateful, be grateful for what you have. And always continue to smile.”