KARLA SHIRVANIAN | staff writer
“They are invisible because there [are] no records kept of their number or age. Invisible because their own armies deny they exist. Invisible because they simply vanish.”
These are the words that appear at the first scene of the new Invisible Children film, The Rescue: of Joseph Kony’s Child Soldiers.
The film helped promote the event happening on April 25 that is also called The Rescue. It will occur in 10 countries and 100 cities.
Invisible Children is asking for people to “abduct yourself to free the abducted.” There is also the opportunity to sign up for the event and Invisible Children is encouraging people to wear two Invisible Children shirts from a “Rescue Pack” throughout the month of April.
“This is definitely going to be our biggest event because it is worldwide,” public relations director for Invisible Children Nada Alic said. “What we normally had was people gathered in the cities and sleeping in the streets at night.”
The core reason for Invisible Children’s activism has been the war that has ravaged the nation of Uganda for 23 years and still continues today, even though it has practically been left out of the news coverage. Three filmmakers stepped in and documented the ravages of war in the film Invisible Children. The non-profit organization began in 2006 and the movement continues now with The Rescue.
From the first film, the Night Commute event in 2006 was held in order to create awareness about the night commuting. The children would walk for hours a night to find shelter to prevent abduction by the Lord’s Resisistance Army or LRA.
In 2007, Displace Me was held to send those in displacement camps back to their homes. According to the film, the camps were meant to protect the people but instead one thousand people a week die because of the dangerous conditions.
“We are going to have people abduct themselves and wait [in “LRA” camps] until someone rescues them, and the people that will be rescuing will be culture makers or in the public eye…people can stay for a day or they can stay for a week but hopefully the media will catch on to it and people will show up,” Alic said.
The goal is to have both a high profile figure and the media attend the event and “rescue” those who have abducted themselves. In order to get them there, the people attending are asked to contact media moguls and make sure the story is covered, because their story deserves to be told.
The Rescue event, as laid out on the Invisible Children website, is based on the idea that three determining forces define our culture: money, media and moguls. Money makes the world go around, media decides what stories in the world are worth telling and moguls compete for the public’s attention in the media. This is a cycle that is repeated over and over again, defining the priorities of the masses.
Invisible Children sees the power this generation can make to bring change to this war in Uganda.
“It is easy to say, ‘I am one person and I cannot make a change,’but know that one person can make a tremendous change,” former Invisible Children roadie and Los Angeles point person for The Rescue Mia Valenzuela said.
The Invisible Children roadies also did official screenings at several schools, including Azusa Pacific.
On March 25, approximately 120 people gathered in UTCC to watch a screening of The Rescue. After the film, the roadies provided information on how to get involved.
APU students were encouraged to grasp the extent of the war that has devastated a nation.
“I personally believe that media is very powerful in telling people’s stories and as an office, we love to have groups [visit] and screen their movies,” graduate assistant in the Office of World Missions and Global Relief Coordinator Erin Lind said.
To participate, one can sign up during the month of April.
“The idea of ‘the rescue’ is we can, as an international body, come together and change things,” Alic said.
To view the documentary and obtain information about the event, visit invisiblechildren.com.
