With the lights of Charlotte Amalie providing a particularly festive backdrop, it was hard to imagine the far away world of child soldiering and sexual slavery depicted in the artistic patchwork of pain and redemption stuck to the historic walls of Catharineberg Saturday night.

But such was the leap 300 guests were asked to make as luminaries from the United Nations and the art world described the heinous conditions that prompted them to birth the Gulu project – an art therapy program turned fundraiser for the war-ravaged children of Gulu, Uganda.

Simone Monasebian, chief of the U.N. New York Office on Drugs and Crime, spoke of youngsters conscripted into the Lord’s Resistance Army who have seen things in their short lifetimes that most people are unwilling to even visualize.

Gasps rolled across Catharineberg’s green lawn as Monasebian spoke of children forced to kill, cook and eat their siblings.

"When I was seven, I learned to use an AK-47." The words are those of a child soldier turned rapper who "Hotel Rwanda" screenwriter Terry George said he met at another U.N event recently. George had been asked to join the U.N. entourage to help with the fund-raising efforts.

Ross Bleckner, a New York-based abstract artist and recently named U.N. goodwill ambassador, provided the artistic impetus and direction for the show when he traveled to Gulu and taught the 25 children the elements of painting. The work of those children was shown at the event hosted by Gov. John deJongh and first lady Cecile deJongh.

Bleckner said when he initially approached the deeply damaged children by tapping into what it means to be a child and by letting them know they were valued and understood, the expressions that poured forth from them was a like a "flood."

"They want to make something," he said.

They also want to know they won’t be abandoned.

Bleckner was clear, "I am going back."

According to Monasebian, "Many of these children learned how to use a gun before they could read or write."

An important element of the project is the restorative justice that comes from having a say in how the money raised from the project will be spent, Monasebian said, adding all of the young artists want to share their good fortune with other children.

Most of it will be used to pay for schooling. One of the watercolor on paper pieces, which sell for $400, will pay for a child to attend school for two years.

The exhibit, which premiered in New York City in May, was brought to St. Thomas thanks to the efforts of entrepreneur and fine artist Tony Romano.

"One of these artists may be the next Leonardo DiCaprio," George said in his sales pitch. "Buy this art."