Invisible Children

On April 29, 2005, the nation took a stand in the Global Night Commute, a night where over half a million people in 300 cities around the U.S. gathered together, slept outside and wrote letters Capitol Hill, asking the U.S. to open their eyes and see the injustices done to the children of Uganda.

The night was fueled by a powerfully compelling story, told in a documentary known as Invisible Children. The film has since sparked the Invisible Children non-profit organization based in San Diego, launching national awareness, a bracelet campaign, a world tour and an international network.

The story begun when three college students, Jason Russell, Bobby Bailey, and Laren Poole, bought a couple cameras off eBay and traveled to Africa as three na've kids in search of any tales they could document and bring home.

"We just opened our lens wide and tried to capture any stories along the way," Russell said in the documentary.

After landing in Kenya, the boys traveled to the war-stricken Sudan, where they followed the southern Sudanese war refugees into North Uganda. In Uganda, they discovered the Acholi Tribe and were shocked to learn that the Acholi children were flocking from the village into the town every night to sleep. The three couldn't understand why these children would leave home every night and travel for miles to pack themselves in uncomfortable spaces and sleep in agonizing conditions.

As they dug deeper into this rabbit hole, the three found what seemed to be an endlessly knotted story, a war dating back 20 years, with its origins deeply rooted in the country's spiritual history and political policy. The children of Uganda were running from the Lord Resistance Army, an army rebel group that abducted children before they could read or write, exposing them to horrific acts of violence and desensitizing them to follow the army ranks.

Joseph Kony, the leader of the LRA used children to prolong his cause to overthrow the Ugandan government. Girls were used as sex slaves, and boys were trained as killing machines.

To escape the abductions and the murders, every night, thousands of wide-eyed children left their homes and disappeared into the night, traveling for miles in fear of being abducted by the army rebels. The children walked miles into town to sleep under porches, on verandahs and at bus stops.

Disoriented by these unjust acts, Jason, Bobby and Laren documented the raw reality and returned to the US to tell about the "Invisible Children." At the first screening of the documentary, the results stormed through and the American people resounded with campaigns and cries for justice and U.S. involvement. The GNC was one echo of this rattling outcry.

"Invisible Children" fired a shot that stirred in the hearts the nation, particularly in the younger generation. After watching the documentary, thousands of youths stepped up with their ideas emerging from the woodwork and formed creative ways to lift the visibility for the invisible children in Uganda and all around the world.

"One of the reasons why it's hitting the youth is because they're being told they actually can make a difference," said Mariana Blanco, an assistant filmmaker at Invisible Children.

Many in our generation have grown up hearing about our grandparents' as the "greatest generation." Their age group fought during World War II and again in the Korean War. Likewise, our parents' generation was lauded for their political activism in the Vietnam War and Civil Rights movement.

Our generation, which has fallen between the cracks of the "No Generation," has been marked by its political staleness and apathy for world issues. As a derivative of MTV, Atari Systems and the Internet, our generation was never told to show interest in the world outside the one we live; hence, we've acquired the label as a defragmented and lost generation.

"Invisible Children" impacted the youth by inserting sound waves into a silent generation and digging into passionate, social justice realms, getting them interested in a cause bigger than themselves.

Thus, the unique dual quality of Invisible Children is that it transforms lives on both the giving and the receiving end.

In the past, Africa has been given a poverty-stricken aura. "It's the kid with the fly on his face. That's all you think of when you think of helping the kids in Africa," Blanco stated.

The late night sponsor-a-child late television ads pitch an unhappy, sorrow-filled portrait of children that are skin and bones, pot-bellied, downtrodden and disease-stricken. It's no question why our generation has been guilted into good will and giving.

Invisible Children is repainting the swollen portrait of Africa and breathing life into a new generation. It encourages combining your talents and creativity to ways to aid the international crisis.

"This new generation can come back with a new fire that wasn't there for a while," Blanco said.

To spark that fire, Blanco suggested finding whatever you love to do, whether that is writing, playing music, dancing or creating, and doing that for Africa. While the youth often feel their contributions have no impact, Blanco said that 90 percent of the donations given to Invisible Children are $20 or under. These were all the results of someone who planned a rock concert and passed around a bucket, or had a bake sale and donated the proceeds.

However small, these proceeds have accumulated into a significant fund, putting 500 children in school, each with a mentor, getting health care, their hair cut, and their school fees paid. Our generation may not make a lot of money, but they certainly can make a difference.

Emily Sernacker a 17-year-old high school senior saw the Invisible Children documentary and in one year, raised $25,000 for Invisible Children through homemade hats, bracelets and accessories.

With Invisible Children, everyone fits as a piece in a puzzle, and anything one does helps complete the bigger picture. When looked at in this perspective, helping put an end to poverty is neither a somber nor an impossible task, but a creative, manageable process that is intrinsically rewarding.

A report by NBC news in San Diego called this a "youth movement in two countries: one in desperate need of help, the other in desperate need of giving it."

"It's so exciting to see people coming alive. It's such an amazing feeling to be doing something you're good at anyway and having it really affect someone in another world that you may never meet […] and to really feel that it's your responsibility, and it's up to you," stated Danica Russell, the art director at Invisible Children.

Invisible Children can inspire than just a vision; it restores a value of generosity back in the youth of America. The volunteers at Invisible Children believe that this movement teaches this generation to care about other issues outside of their own sphere. The hope for the organization is that the values will transcend beyond the invisible children that exist in Africa, and cover the rest of the world as well.

It has been said that in this organization, you're giving to a generation in Africa that needs help, but you're also helping a generation that needs to give. When you look at what the kids have to endure in Uganda everyday, everything we experience in America pales in comparison.

The Ugandan people want only basic human needs - survival and peace. It creates a sobering perspective. While the majority of us may not put ourselves on the front line of a war, we can do our part by looking beyond the horizons of our lives and find our responsibility in deeper issues of the world's poverty and social justice.