First of all, I want start off by giving a little back story. 6 years ago was the first time I ever heard about Invisible Children. I was at a church youth group and they were explaining to us, a bunch of middle schoolers at the time, what this organization was and the awful, terrible horrors that were going on in Uganda. And to be honest, I didn’t pay much attention. I was 13, bored, and just wanted to go play games. But, this was the first time I ever heard about this amazing movement.
So, like most people, I got wrapped up in my own little life. I moved onto high school, stopped going to that church and youth group, went to college, grew up, and I totally forgot about Invisible Children. That doesn’t mean it went away though. And I haven’t thought about Invisible Children or the people of Uganda for about 4 or 5 years now, not again until tonight.
Tonight, as I was trolling along on Tumblr, I noticed a video with a name and a tag on it that I recognized: Invisible Children: Kony 2012. Curious, as I hadn’t seen the name in a while, I clicked on the video, and spent the last half hour of my life truly listening to what I should have 6 years ago.
For those of you who, like myself, hadn’t heard much or anything at all about Invisible Children or Joseph Kony until tonight or a couple days or a couple months ago or whatever, I’m going to give you the quick run down:
Joseph Kony is a man who claims to be a good, Christian man, working for God Almighty. Joseph Kony has been stealing young girls and boys out of their beds at night and forcing them to do unthinkable horrors. The girls are being forced into prostitution as sex slaves, the boys are forced to carry guns and trained to shoot, trained to be in an army. Joseph Kony is creating this “rebel army”, called the Lord’s Resistance Army(LRA), made up of children, some who are no older than 6 years old, and making them do things like kill their parents, their families, their own people. And he is claiming to do this all in the name of God.
Now, as a Christian myself, I find this EXTREMELY offensive. But that’s beside the point. The point is that we can do something to fix this. Joseph Kony has been at this for 26 years, and nobody has been able to stop him. Why you may ask? Because he himself is invisible. He is unknown to 98% of the world. But we can change that. This is the time to make a difference. All you have to do is spread the word. If you really want to get involved, contact me. I’ll give you some websites you can donate to, a package you can buy, or better yet, here’s the video that will really help you out:
https://vimeo.com/37119711
For all of you people who are angry because “people are just finding out about Kony now”, who the hell do you think you are? If that’s what you’re angry about, you have lost all of the meaning that this cause is for. This is a cause to make people listen, to spread the word, and you’re angry because people are finally starting to listen?!? I honestly think this is the most ridiculous thing in the world, but that is beside the point.
The point is we can make a difference, right here, right now. All you have to do is spread the word about Joseph Kony, make him famous, if you really want to, donate money, pledge to the cause, help out however you can, but this is something that can change our world forever, create a better future not only for ourselves, but for so many others. Don’t you want a better world to live in?
