After a trip to Uganda she struggled with how to properly publicize the plight of the Acholi children in Uganda and consulted with former President Bill Clinton, whom she met while touring Africa with UNICEF and the Clinton Foundation.
During the civil war in Uganda between the UNLA (which was now the national army) and Yoweri Museveni's National Resistance Army, president Milton Obote alienated much of the Acholi-dominated officer corps, including Olara-Okello and General Tito Okello, by appointing his fellow ethnic Lango, Brigadier Smith Opon Acak, as army Chief of Staff.
Being and Acholi and a member of the Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC) party and fearing for his life he was forced to flee Uganda in 1977 during the height of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin's rule and ended up in Kenya where he join The University of Nairobi Medical School as a lecturer in the same year.
GuluWalk is an initiative started by two Canadians to highlight the plight of Acholi children in northern Uganda who used to trek each night to town centers in the districts of Gulu, Kitgum and Pader – for fear of being maimed, raped, abducted or even killed by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a rebel paramilitary group that has been operating in northern Uganda since 1987.
The Acholi and Langi ethnic groups were particular objects of Amin's political persecution because they had supported Obote and made up a large part of the army.
In 2011, she began using the name Holly Elissa Lamaro (sometimes rendered Lamaro Holly Elissa as in the Acholi tradition) after elders of the Ugandan Acholi people honoured her with the name Lamaro, which means "having a love for people, a love for humanity".
The students spoke 27 different languages other than English in their homes, including Arabic, Spanish, Somali, Khmer, Vietnamese, Serbo-Croatian, and Acholi.
Historically, the inhabitants of Magwi County are ethnic Acholi; they constitute the largest significant ethnic Acholi community outside of the Acholi sub-region in Northern Uganda.
Opari was the district administrative headquarters for the regions inhabited by the Lotuko (Otuho), Madi and Acholi ethnic groups.