invisible children

ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT POSTS YOU'LL EVER READ.
And this is the 99th post and I wouldn't want any other topic for it either!

I want you to picture yourself sleeping at age 8.

But this time you are sleeping in a public street or area.

Every night you walk with your siblings to the biggest city,

and you sleeping in big groups of children from villages any and every where.

In the morning, you wake up and walk back home to do chores and school.

You repeat this every single night for a decade so you won't be abducted.

So every day you leave your village to be safe, but one day your village is burned.

Everyone in the village is dead or gone. You and your siblings are alone.

So you sleep in your bed that night because everyone else is gone.

All of the sudden you hear screams and gun shots and loud voices.

And then you are taken from your home and forced into an army.

An army that is made up completely of children who are forced to kill.

You are now given a gun and sent into your best friend's village, and

you are given orders to kill all the people in that village and burn it.

Every night there are children who experience what I described.

The man behind all of this is named Joseph Kony and he heads the L.R.A.

30,000+ children have been taken from their homes and thousands killed.

There is no cause or reason for this war except for Kony's own power.

Meet Josephy Kony:

There are many criminals out there in our world, but Kony is #1

on the International Criminal Court list and has been for 7 years.

He is being charged with murder, sexual slavery, rapes and abductions.

A couple years ago I found out about an organization focused on stopping

Joseph Kony and saving the children from being abducted and killed in Africa.
(I grew to love their cause and have support them as much as I can.
I even considered uprooting my life this summer to be an intern for them!)

Anyways, Invisible Children is focused on ending this war and making the world aware.

This war could have been stopped years ago, but 99% of the world doesn't know.

For almost a decade Invisible children has been putting out information

to politicians and to young people. Anyone who can make a difference.

And finally in October of 2011, the U.S. sent over a small number of forces into

central Africa to provide assistance to regional forces that are 

working toward the removal of Joseph Kony from the battlefield.

However, this support could be removed at any time and Kony is still out there.

He knows of the plan to remove him from his power so his tactics have changed.

Think back throughout the world's history.

There are horrible events that we all wish had been stopped.

Thousands of people were killed because people didn't step up.

That can't happen again. 

We need to shape human history.

"We need to fight back and show the people that we see them

and that we care enough to fight for them."

The Ugandan military needs to find Kony this year.

We need to inform people about this so that the

government knows we care and keeps the military

over in central Africa to train the Ugandan man

so they can capture Kony in 2012!!!

However, I know that 

capturing Kony is not enough.

It won't matter what the civilized people want to do,

Kony and his army will keep doing what they want to do.

And that will happen with or without Kony as their leader.

There needs to be a breakdown of the army and culture

that is allowing this to continue to happen.

But we need to work on what to do afterwards.

Americans need to get together to work on

counseling and educating the people of Africa.

But this cannot be done in an American way.

The people of Africa need us to meet their needs their way.

The only way to really end this war - 

educate the people in Uganda so it doesn't happen again.

Look at Rwanda. Rwandans have been working on

pulling their country together after the genocide.

That starts with the children of their country by

educating them to love others and think differently.

I believe that this is the future of the African people.

I am personally trying to go over to do my part

in educating the Rwandans this summer for a month!

My goal: inform, inspire, change.

"Be informed so you can inform.
Be inspired so you can inspire.
Be changed so you can ignite change."

-me

I'm getting involved in this organization

and I encourage you to do the same.
Or find some other way to be involved.

Any little bit can help.
Be the change you want to see.

Want more information?! Watch this video!

It's only 29 minutes but watch as much as possible.

I promise your life will be different.

We've seen these kids.

We've heard their cries.

This war must end.

We will not stop.

We will not fear.

We will fight war.