To start off, I wonder, how many of you who are reading actually knew about Kony before this whole blow up? How many were aware of what was going on? To be perfectly honest, I was pretty ignorant. I knew that there were child soldiers in Africa and I knew about sex slavery as well. On some level I had an idea of Kony but never bothered to actually find out anything. To sum it up there is a man named Joseph Kony who worked in Uganda abducting children and forcing them in sex slavery and child armies. The group he leads is called the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) a group motivated to purify the Acholi people. Since 1986, Kony and the LRA have abducted over 60 000 children, forcing them out of their homes and into the LRA. As of right now, the LRA have moved out of Uganda but that doesn't mean it has stopped. There are still children today being affected by this in other parts of Africa and there are still children being killed. Some children were even forced to kill their whole family. These children don't have a choice with the LRA, it is either join or die and many more are fearing their lives every night when they go to sleep, running from Kony and the LRA. Kony is the number 1 wanted person in the world. In my opinion, no child should be going to bed at night scared for their life. Scared that they will be abducted or slaughtered.
After watching the Kony 2012 video that has sparked so much over these past few days, I was left speechless. I could not believe what I was so oblivious to. Kony and the LRA need to be stopped. The non profit organization "Invisible Children" have been working to make this happen.
Here is where it gets ugly. A lot of you have been posting that people need to do research before they jump into helping Invisible Children. There are many people out there who believe that the Invisible Children fund is a fraud. They believe the the organization is only in it for the money. From what I have read and observed I don't believe this. I think that the Invisible Children are a trustworthy organization who just want to do some good and put an end to a huge problem. They use film and social media to raise awareness and put an end to the use of child soldiers in Kony's army. Let's be honest here, this is what our society is most impacted by. We are a generation that runs on social media and technology. The proof is the the last few days after observing the 70 plus Facebook posts I saw of the Kony 2012 video. This is what we notice and this is what gets us up and moving.
There is also another problem of people mocking the fact that people feel accomplished after posting the video. The freeze frame pictures with text that say "watched a 30 minute video, became a social activist". Here's the thing: because we are a generation that relies on technology, we are affected by the 30 minutes we spent watching the video. Even if you are mindlessly posting the video on your wall you are doing something. The whole point is to raise awareness and that is what is happening. Even if it didn't affect you deeply enough to do no more than just post the video, it would have affected someone else who would have watched what you posted. You are doing more by posting the video than you know. Passing it on and sharing it has made a great deal of a difference because it made that many more people aware of the problem. Like I asked earlier in the post, how many actually knew how big of a problem this was before you saw it? I know I am more educated now and I feel like I need to do something to stop it and I am not just stopping at re posting the video. This has always been a desire close to my heart I have just never done anything about it. A lot of us were not raised in social activism and it takes one video to trigger that desire to help. So yes, watch a 30 minute video become a social activist.
Another problem I would like to address is the fact that people are wondering how this got so much attention when there are equally relevant problems out there. I just want to say, yes there are, but with the Kony 2012 video someone made the initiative to put an end to child slavery with the LRA and was extremely successful in doing so. The 30 minute video made by Invisible Children has had a HUGE impact. Jason Russell took the situation into his own hands and made an impact. I know there are more problems out there just as important, but the fact is, this video was done. This video was made to raise awareness of Joseph Kony and the LRA and it did. Jason stepped up and made the effort to make this known. To make this problem stand out. To make this problem a big deal so it can be put to an end. It all starts with an idea.
So to conclude, I believe the Kony 2012 video was an amazing accomplishment that has already made an impact on our generation and how we live. The awareness was raised and that was the main objective. I am almost positive that if someone were to do something like this for another problem, it would get the same reaction and the same awareness. We are humans, we have trouble doing more than one big task at a time. After Kony is caught and the LRA is taken care of we will continue to focus on other problems. But for right now, it is to stop Kony. Even if you don't support Invisible Children or the movie, you have to admit, it is making a difference. It did what it was meant to do and it did it well. I will continue to stand for this and yes I am going to cover the night on April 20th. Kony needs to be stopped. These children need to be saved. Working together, whether or not it is with Invisible Children, we can do this. Make Kony famous. Stop at nothing.
For those of you who live in caves:
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