Who are the Invisible Children

The Invisible Children Organisation recently hit the spotlight with millions of people around the world watching the U-tube clip encouraging us to make KONY famous through there KONY 2012 campaign to find Joseph Kony and bring him to justice in 2012, by enlisting the help of 20 key celebrities and 12 key policy-makers in the US. A pretty clever marketing concept don't you think?

The group has since coped plenty of criticism in the traditional media, social networks, blogs and internet sites, for their practises and how the spend the money the raise and if their methods will even work.  A quick overview of their  website shows their main aim is to bring Joseph Kony and the LRA to the International Crime Court.

However their Programmes include Legacy Scholarship Programmes; Schools for schools; Amend, Livelihood; Community Protection programs, Defection, and Rehabilitation.

But what is there history and who are they really? ,The Invisible Children Organisation was foundered in 2004 by Jason Russell, Lauren Poole  and Bobby Bailey to specifically put an end to LRA operations in Uganda, since 2006. However, the LRA operations has since dissolved see our post from yesterday on the LRA. The group does continue to operate in small numbers in Democratic Republic of Congo; Central African Republic, and Southern Sudan.           icencey            

With the intention to make a documentary called War in Durfur in 2003, the groups founders travel Africa. This war was centralised in the Durfur region of Sudan. It was mainly a civil war, between different tribes, the government of Sudan denies supporting any one rebel tribe. The Sudanese Government and the JEM called a truce in 2010.

After witnessing live gun fire on root to Uganda Jason Russell and his team discovered Joseph Kony and his LRA army. After this encounter the group decided to focus on this aspect of the civil war and produced a film called Invisible Children: A Rough Cult.

The film is about the civil war in Southern Uganda and depicts the adduction of children and their use as child soldiers by  Joseph Kony in his LRA Army.

Initially the film was only shown to friends and family, believe little was known about the LRA the group began showing the movie to high school students and churches in a mission to exposed what they had witness in Uganda. The began raising money for the cause through selling merchandise such as T-shirts and bracelets.  

The 2005 Invisible Children DVD seems to have start along history of making documentaries for team. This means of creating public awareness seems to be their greatest strength.  In all the group has produced ten documentaries highlighting civil war and the huge epidemic of displacement in Africa.  Although the media and marketing group are based in the US they also have a team on the Uganda you can view the team and information on the projects on the ground in Uganda on their website    

In 2007 Invisible Children organise an event called Displace Me, 67,000 Activist camped in cardboard box makeshift towns for the night to raise awareness of the displacement experience by the living in Uganda at the time. Since this time the group has continued it direct humanitarian aid in rebuilding lives and its public awareness campaigns, including its current Make Kony Visible 2012 which has received over 50,000 million hits to view in under a week. 

As already highlighted this campaign has drawn criticism from the media, academics, other groups working in the area, and individuals.  Mostly widely the video itself is almost unverseable criticised for its over simplification of a complex and highly violable situation. There is some debate as to how helpful the campaign is on the ground in Uganda and Sudan and whether drawing attention about the deployment of US troops has been harmful.  The other major criticism is how the group uses its donations.  In view their administration team it does appear that the organisation is possibility over staffed in terms of administration.  However the full finical statements are now available on their website and this is far beyond my level of expertise.

As individuals involved in world change we all have our own values and beliefs on how our charity dollars should be spent.  We have a right to know and therefore chose how our money helps change the world and we need to be diligent in when and how we support causes, because rest assure there be a new cause next week and the week after.  In the aftermath of the events of last week, I think we all need to step back and research a organisation before supporting it and being drag into something by our heart strings, if a cause is worth supporting it will be there for the lone term.

Having said that I applaud the Invisible Children for following their convictions and keeping the pressure on the US government.  Many would of said the troops are on the ground and called it a day. As April 20 2012 approaches we ask you keep the dialogue alive.  Whether you support the KONY 2012 campaign is your choice.

We hope our exploration of Joseph Kony, the Lord's Resistance Army and the Invisible Children over the last few days has been helpful and we encourage you to keep read and increase your knowledge of these.

Thank you,

The Director        

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