Sights Unseen

Every year my high school takes the opportunity to help one organization with a school-wide fundraiser spanning the length of three weeks. We call it School Chest, and have raised thousands upon thousands every year for worthy organizations. This year the beneficiary is Invisible Children, an organization dedicated to ending the violence of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda. The LRA is run by the warlord Joseph Kony, and abducts children from remote villages and towns. The soldiers force the children to murder their families, then brainwash, abuse, and murder the children themselves, all the while training an army of 5-11 year old killers. Ugandan children (and those living in neighboring countries harassed by the LRA) live in a state of constant fear. They flock from their homes to sleep on the floors of city buildings in great heaps, all of them deathly afraid of abduction. They have no supervision, no food, no beds, nothing.

The crisis is ongoing, and the developed world remains in the dark. Invisible Children is a social action group that uses young people's voices to bring the invisible children of Uganda to the forefront of American sight. They lobby, fund raise, and document relentlessly.

One of the major goals of Invisible Children is the prevention of abductions and murders in villages. Their early warning radio network serves to alert villages (who normally have little outside communication) of LRA risks in their area and enables them to call for help. If my high school raises enough money, we could fund a radio tower and save the lives of children and those living in remote communities.

I am intensely impressed with the dedication of the Invisible Children volunteers and with the dedication of my peers to this cause. I believe they deserve every penny that we earn this school chest, and I am proud to be a part of ending the conflict in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Help make these children visible. Please support school chest and the Invisible Children movement. See the links below for more information on the cause, and for ways to help!

http://invisiblechildren.com/homepage   http://www.stayclassy.org/fundraise/ic?fcid=171955