By Kayla Walker
I was brought up with the belief that a person should always take what time, energy and wealth they had to spare and donate it toward a greater good. Before last spring, an organization had never incited a real need in me to act until I learned about Invisible Children.
Last April I saw a story in my local news about a group of people that camped out all night in downtown Portland, OR on behalf of Invisible Children. The really interesting part is that these people weren’t alone. Over 80,000 people camped out in cities across America last year to raise awareness about the ongoing war in Uganda. The most motivating part of the 2006 Global Night Commute was that most participators were teenagers and young adults.
The event was organized in order to educate people about the conflict in Uganda that has displaced over 1.4 million people (80 percent of which are women and children) according to UNICEF. Invisible Children’s story began in 2003 when Jason Russell, Bobby Bailey and Laren Poole, three college students, were traveling to Sudan, by way of Uganda, to film a documentary about the atrocities in that country. The men never made it to Sudan.
Instead, they were witnesses to another conflict, of which children have borne the brunt for over 20 years. What the guys saw really affected them and when they returned home to San Diego, after promising a young Ugandan boy they would not forget him, they produced their documentary and started a revolution.
Titled “Invisible Children: Discover the Unseen,” the film documents a few of the lives of the 30,000 children that commute from their rural homes to cities where they spend the night protected from Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army. The LRA, a paramilitary group that uses a hybrid religion of Christianity, Islam and mysticism as justification for their actions, has terrorized Northern Uganda since 1987. The group kidnaps children, brainwashes them and forces the boys to become soldiers and mass murderers. The girls are raped and forced to marry LRA officers.
The documentary is shown mainly in schools and churches and has spurned a generation into action. After the overwhelming response to the 2006 Global Night Commute (where participators were given the resources to send hand-written letters to their congresspersons and President George Bush), Invisible Children took part in the Northern Uganda Lobby Day (October 9-10, 2006). Supported by Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), the group got to take part in an event with other charities to highlight the peace talks between the LRA and the United Nations that resumed only two months after the Global Night Commute occurred on April 28, 2006.
Invisible Children’s efforts have not stopped there. Since the summer, the organization has set up the Schools 4 Schools campaign which has allowed American schools to raise over $360,000 toward rebuilding schools for the Ugandan people. These schools will hopefully restore some stability to the lives of children who live in fear about being taken in the night.
On a sensible note, the charity operates under complete transparency. Visitors to the organization’s website (www.invisiblechildren.com) can access the charity’s annual reports and financial statements. Schools 4 Schools participators can watch, in the world’s first real-time humanitarian website, where their funds raised are allocated.
Although the charity has gotten the attention of some high-profile members of young Hollywood, the organization is proud that its most active contributors and supporters are students. And why shouldn’t they be? The organization has worked hard to appeal to “Generation Y” in a way that does everything to unite them and nothing to alienate them.
The organizations’ campaigns would make the most ambitious public relations firm envious in their ingenuity. The videos the charity produces (set to popular rock songs by bands like The Killers and My Chemical Romance) would make any executive at MTV take notice. Yet, the only peoples’ attention the group is trying to get is ours.
All of the organization’s causes have been motivating enough to incite me to action: I’ve purchased some of the hand-made bracelets that return profits back to the Ugandan women that make them, I signed up to donate a measly $3.00 a week for their “Give Peace a Tri” campaign (the video for this campaign is amazing) and on Saturday, April 28, I’ll be sleeping on the streets in New York with fellow participators as a part of Displace Me 2007.
The most remarkable thing to remember about Invisible Children is that it was founded and is run by people only a few years older than me. A group of 20-somethings have successfully run a charity that has received global attention, certainly not a small feat. On April 18 peace talks were again resumed and a ceasefire was signed between the LRA and the Ugandan government. So, take notice and be inspired. Whether Invisible Children appeals to you or not, respect their accomplishments. If you’re interested in participating in Displace Me 2007, it’s not too late to sign-up. You can do so at www.invisiblechildren.com/displaceMe/. Hopefully, I’ll see a few of you there.