‘X’ marks effort to save children
By Adaeze Eechi
SENIOR Writer

ISSUE: 05/01/07 > FEATURES > ‘X’ marks effort to save children

Photos by Chris Speed As part of a national effort to call attention to the ongoing war waged between the Ugandan government and the Lord’s Resistance Army, Belmont students joined “Displace Me” April 28. The shack city they set up is a reminder that the LRA in Uganda daily kidnaps children to turn them into soldiers for its cause, and many other families are forced from their homes and into squalid conditions in makeshift camps. The local event included, above, speakers and a showing of a documentary film on the human rights violations that are at issue; the establishment of the refugee camp; and on a lighter note, a gathering of all the participants, joined in solidarity for the cause. The war in Uganda, now in its 21st year, is the longest ongoing conflict in Africa.

On Wednesday, April 25, Belmont University was riddled with students wearing a plain white T-shirt with a large red “X” painted across the front. Those students are on a mission to end a war in Uganda, central Africa.

Their story began with three Southern California college boys aged 18 and 19. The trio’s story has not only become those Belmont students’ story, but over 60,000 people across the United States.

When Jason Russell, Bobby Bailey and Laren Poole heard about the holocaust in war-torn Sudan for the first time in 2002, they were moved. On March 20, 2003, they decided that they would take a video camera, some clothes and truckload of adventurous desire to document the victims’ stories. What they found was not what they expected. It invariably changed their lives.

When the friends got to Sudan, they found that everyone had fled the country in search of safety and refuge. They heard that many of them went to northern Uganda, on the other side of the southern border of Sudan, so they packed up their few belongings and followed.

On their return to America, they took the footage they had gathered and turned it into a film titled “Invisible Children” after the horrors they uncovered and showed it to the world:

Northern Uganda is experiencing a war of its own between the Ugandan government and an insurgent group called Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (or the LRA) that wants to overthrow the government.

One of the main ways the LRA acquires soldiers is through kidnappings. They kidnap children between the ages of five and 12 years because they are easier to brainwash and turn into killing machines. The children are desensitized by a form of initiation where they see other children brutally murdered in front of them when they do not do as they are told or if they show weakness, or have been caught trying to escape. The child soldiers, lacking education and brainwashed to be bloodthirsty, are made to go out and kill people.

In fear of being kidnapped at night, the children who have not been abducted by the LRA walk a total of up to 20 to 30 miles every night from their town, Gulu, into the city where they feel it is somewhat safe and every morning from the city back to the town. These children sleep wherever they can. Many take refuge in hospitals and on the hospital verandas where they feel remotely safe. The children sleep on the floors and have no access to medical facilities – many are not in school. In the morning, they trek back into the town.

Russell, Bailey and Poole formed an organization after the film called Invisible Children Inc., where they make more and more people aware of the situation in Gulu, Uganda. One of the ways they spread their word is to have college-aged spokespeople tour the country for three months and show the film, “Invisible Children,” at colleges. Nashville was among the last of the cities they would visit on their tour.

On Thursday, April 19, the Invisible Children tour group came to Belmont, showed the video, educated students about their organization and shared the children’s story.

“These people are forgotten,” said Alex Fortson, one of the Invisible Children Inc. representatives. “We want to share these [stories] to cultivate a spirit of compassion [for them].”

They want a bit more than just compassion. These representatives are looking to stir other college-aged people into action.

“I love seeing our generation come alive,” said Belmont freshman Tim Harms. “We have been labeled an apathetic generation… [but] we are internationally setting out to do the impossible: … end a war.”

Last year, Invisible Children organized a demonstration that involved imitating the children in Gulu, Uganda, where they walked the same distance the children did every morning and night and slept in the street. This “Global Night Commute” took place in 13 cities across the United States and in other cities around the world. Nashville was one of those cities and over 80,000 people participated.

Two months later, peace talks began in Uganda. With the effort of Invisible Children Inc. and all the people they have been able to rally for their cause, on April 25 there was a peace talk between the government and the rebels and a ceasefire that will last until June 30 is in place.

Invisible Children Inc. wants to gather as many people as they can to put pressure on the American government to put pressure on the Ugandan government to ensure peace for the people, especially the children.

This year on April 28, the non-profit organization put together another demonstration of compassion called “Displace Me.”

In an attempt to protect the people from the rebel militia, the Ugandan government has created a displaced people’s camp for the citizens of Acholi in northern Uganda. As much as this is a move toward protecting the people, the living conditions in those camps are still difficult.

“Water is scarce and people are reliant on food to be delivered by foreign aid,” states the Invisible Children website. “If the food isn’t delivered, the people starve.”

Russell, Bailey and Poole came up with another simulation situation where the people will spend a night in a camp and write letters to Congress to put pressure on the entire government on behalf of the people of Uganda. Their mission is to send the people of Acholi in the camps and the abducted children back home.

Bracelets made in Uganda, T-shirts and the Invisible Children video are sold to raise money for the cause, but there is something else the organizers want more than your money.

“This is the most crucial time for us to act. Just because there are peace talks [going on] doesn’t mean that the war is over,” said Fortson. “[The situation] is at a tipping point and we want to push it in the right direction.”