For about a year, my school has sponsored an Invisible Children Club. We work to raise awareness of and funds for the deplorable situation in Northern Uganda; we recently held a benefit concert, a bake sale, and we are working on a number of different projects. But enough about us...
Invisible Children was founded in 2003 when a group of three college students decided that a trip to Africa would be great fun. While there, they discovered an crisis that went unnoticed by the larger world community. In Northern Uganda, a civil war has raged for over 20 years, destroying the countryside and decimating the population. Children are kidnapped and forced to become soldiers for the rebel army (The Lord's Resistance Army); they are taken from their homes in the middle of the night and forced to commit acts of cruelty. Any who refuse to kill are killed, usually by their peers. They are desensitized to the violence surrounding them and robbed of their innocence. Meanwhile, the people who have escaped the rebel soldiers are placed in displacement camps. These camps are ill-suited for habitation and cramped. Within the camps, disease and hunger is widespread- the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which had formerly spared the northern regions of Uganda, now claims hundreds of lives.
Now, instead of thinking, “Oh, how horrible”, DO SOMETHING. Organize a club, buy merchandise. We organized a benefit concert- we were somehow able to convince four local bands to play for free (it may have helped that several of the parents provided them with food). People can surprise you- please, act. See what you can do.
And, once again, I climb down from my soapbox.
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Money is nice, but it is not a fix-it-all... only in the right hands, under the right program can it avail to anything.
How is this money used to fix the problem?
To purchase food, water, clothing, adequete housing materials, various other necessities, and to fund more educational programs to get people involved. For more information, visit the website provided above.
How do these items help fight a Hitler's Youth style agenda?
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"Smart" is definitely a relative term. I know a great many intelligent people who do a great many unintelligent things.
The big issue now is the displacement camps- lots of children have been given a safe place to stay, in the displacement camps.
Website
Money-specific info
this sounds like a way good idea.
i wish my school would do more things like this, but of course it doesnt..