Hi all! Friday’s Lenten challenge is to do the Stations for Social Justice. I don’t know how many, if any of you have heard of Invisible Children, but it’s an organization that I’ve been involved with for the last couple years. Its goal is to stop Africa’s longest running war (25 years). It started as a civil war between the Ugandan government and a rebel group called the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), led by Joseph Kony. Kony is responsible for the kidnapping and murder of hundreds of thousands of children to fight in his rebel army. The Ugandan government has tried to relocate close to 2 million of its people to camps in an attempt to protect them from the LRA. However, this has left millions of people living in extreme poverty and not much safer than they would have been in their villages. Invisible Children has been organizing programs in the US to provide funding to Uganda to rebuild, bring families back together, provide a safe place for children to be educated, etc. Because of this group’s humanitarian efforts and its widespread international support, Congress has recently signed a bill that recognizes the threat Kony poses and a plan to help catch him and rebuild Northern Uganda. However, since the signing of this bill the LRA has spread into southern Sudan, D.R. Congo, and the Central Africa Republic. So in response to the LRA’s movement, Invisible Children has a plan to help set up radio towers to connect remote villages so they have advance warning of LRA movements, the rehabilitation of child soldiers into community life and search and rescue teams to find and help people who have escaped the LRA. I know this is a long explanation, but bear with me. Helping this organization is something I am passionate about, so I am joining its current movement to raise money and awareness, called 25. On April 25th, we will be silent for 25 hours, one hour for every year this war has been going on. Everyone participating is asked to raise a minimum of $25, 100% of which will go towards the plan I have outlined above. I am asking for any help whatsoever that any of you is willing to give, or at the very least to pass this on.
If you want more information about Invisible Children the website is: http://www.invisiblechildren.com/split_screen
and here is the link to my fundraising page:
If you have any other questions, I am more than happy to try and answer them and I know that this isn’t a social justice issue that is close to home, but it is one that I feel needs to be addressed. Thank you!
Thank you Rachel for sending this information to me. I have heard about the IC program but never had any details. We will be doing our Stations for this cause and will be donating some money.
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