Friday, March 09, 2012

Invisible Children

Today, I am here, and it seems like I am going to be writing a (possibly a really long) blog post about Invisible Children, and Joseph Kony.

Firstly, if you haven't, watch the video:


Like always, there will always be different opinions on this campaign. Some are for it, some against. And of course there also exist the people who can't be bothered.

When I first saw this video on facebook, I was all, who the fuck is Kony? Some presidential candidate? I was hesitant to watch the video initially because I was intimidated by the sheer length of it. Plus I didn't know what it was about, why waste my time? Of course I ended up watching it, because I figured if I thought it was nothing important (or interesting) to me, I could stop the video there and then. But I didn't end up stopping the video halfway, my eyes were glued to the screen...

For those who can't be bothered to watch, here is a short introduction of who Joseph Kony is.

Joseph Kony is the leader of the rebel group, LRA (Lord's Resistance Army). He abducts children, and forces them kill their parents, and mutilate other people faces. Girls become sex slaves, and boys are turned into child soldiers. He has already done this to 30,000 children. And the worst part is that, Kony is not fighting for any cause, he just wants to maintain his power.

Who is the Invisible Children?
Invisible Children Inc., very simply, is a non-profit organization who aims to end the use of child soldiers, and hopefully bring forward the arrest of Kony.

I would like to state that the purpose of Invisible Children's video is to raise awareness among people about Kony. To tell the world, who exactly is Kony, what is it that he does, and raise support for his arrest.

I think that there are a lot of people out there who refuse to believe that this campaign is real. They think that this is a scam, or a fake advertisement, and its sole purpose is to suck kind-hearted people's money through donations. A lot of people, who are against this movement, think that what the Invisible Children through the video is wrong. That they are just pulling on the heartstrings of gullible people, to make them donate.

And because of this, a lot of people have misunderstood the purpose of the video. Its main purpose is to "make Kony famous". To make him popular, to let people know of his terrible crimes, to tell people that it is time we stop him. To raise the support of people, so that governments would take action to put Kony in jail. And I think that the Invisible Children have certainly done it! They have managed to raise the awareness of people like you and I. They have certainly gotten people talking about Kony, whether people are for or against the idea, people now know Kony, more than they did before. In their video, they did ask for support, for people to donate and help Uganda's children. BUT you could also choose not to, they did not force you to. You could simply just pledge your support - without fees, without having to donate at all. All here: http://www.causes.com/causes/227-invisible-children It is just to pledge your support, no donations, nothing.  

Invisible Children has also responded to their many critiques, answering many questions - how they spend their fees, etc: http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.invisiblechildren.com/critiques.html

Again, I point out that the main purpose of the Invisible Children video is to make Kony famous. To raise awareness amongst people, so that people will know who he is, and what he does. And with the 55 million hits (seriously???), I think they have done a great job!

There are varying opinions of people, and there are a lot who are skeptical of this issue. But think, what has the Invisible Children done for the Ugandan children? How have they already changed the lives of the children? Do you think really think that their efforts are fake? They are doing so much more; they want to bring peace to Uganda's children, with the arrest of Kony.


"Who are you to stop a war?
Now let me ask you, who are you not to?"

No comments:

Post a Comment