In the spring of 2003, a couple of young filmmakers traveled to Africa in search of a story. What started out as a filmmaking adventure transformed into much more. These young film makers discovered a land where children are both the weapons and the victims.
After returning to the States, they created the documentary “Invisible Children: Rough Cut,” which exposed the tragic realities of northern Uganda’s night commuters and child soldiers.
The film was originally shown to friends and family, and later to schools across the country. The overwhelming response has been: “How can I help?” To answer this question, the non-profit corporation, Invisible Children, was created, giving compassionate individuals an effective way to respond to the situation.
The organization has young people traveling around the country, showing films in order to raise awareness and money for the protection of innocent Ugandan people.
The film was screened at TAMIU WHEN. Among the volunteers who came to show the film was a Ugandan victim fortunate to escape from a disaster in which her sisters were killed.
Since 1986 an armed conflict raged through Northern Uganda between the rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the government army (UPDF). Rebel leader Joseph Kony and his rebel army have made life for people in Northern Uganda very unsafe. Kony has spread fear and terror amongst the people of Northern Uganda. He believes he receives orders from divine powers to continue the fight. His soldiers are rubbed with sacred oil, after which they cannot be harmed, according to Kony. Those who return from the struggle are proof of this story, and those who are shot in the struggle didn’t listen properly.
In Northern Uganda children every day are confronted with the effects of the war. Children have lost parents, brothers and/or sisters, their families have fallen apart and villages and schools have been destroyed. Children were also actively part of the war as child soldier. The rebels recruited children by kidnapping them from their villages and schools. They had to fight, spy, carry heavy loads, act as human shield, or sex slave. They were forced to plunder the poor food supplies from the communities where they were born. Some children even had to kill their own family members, so all ties were cut off. To attempt an escape was like Russian roulette.
TAMIU students were so inspired by the film that some of them signed up to volunteer in a movement called “The 25 Campaign”, which will be happening on April 25th so LRA victims are remembered and heard; the event will also generate money to help defend the people from the LRA.