Invisible Children

                I am on Student Council at my high school and was a part of deciding the two possible beneficiaries for our school to vote on for our yearly charity drive. When it came down to the two, I knew right away that Invisible Children would be the winner. After seeing the documentaries and hearing an escaped child soldier speak, I knew that I wanted to help their cause and that so many others would, too. Jedidiah Jenkins spoke to our school and his speech revolved around us. Us as in ourselves; just teenagers attending a high school surrounded by a bubble known as the North Shore of Chicago. He told us that we can make a difference. And looking at the pictures and watching the videos of students our age rallying for change; we couldn’t deny that we could do it, too.

                I believe that Invisible Children puts the money they have raised towards good causes. They are creating tangible things for the children, whether its books, schools, communication devices or just basic necessities. This organization allows us to see where our money goes; it makes our donations visible, and in turn should do so to the invisible children. Parts of their website, such as their crisis tracker, allow us to see what’s happening. Just looking at it right now, it says that there have been ZERO civilian deaths and ZERO abductions. I truly believe that our help is what has allowed this number to stay at zero, and looking at that number all I can think is that I want to do whatever it takes to keep that number at zero.

                Watching a documentary impacted me a lot. It is very helpful that the organization has so many documentaries to watch as it is hard to believe what is happening to these kids without seeing it through our own eyes. It is so easy to relate to the kids who are filmed in the documentaries because they are our age, they like the things we like and love to act like normal kids. During one of the documentaries I watched a man who escaped after being a child soldier said, “The question for life is for all; for any color.” His words really hit me. He put into words what really was going on; anyone can die any given day. It doesn’t matter where you’re from or the color of your skin. When it comes to death, we are all put at the same level. No one is greater than another. It is the same with birth; we were all children at one point, as weak and vulnerable as the rest. The difference is that if someone got abducted and was forced to be a child solider in the United States, the entire world would know about it. Everyone in the US would do everything they could to help. But when a child is abducted in Northern Uganda, forced to kill his family, carry a gun and bow down to a mass murderer, no one hears about it. There’s no Amber Alert in Africa. That is one of the things that Invisible Children is trying to change and why I believe in this organization more than any other; they are giving the child soldiers a voice. And a loud voice, too. This organization has decided to make the invisible children of Africa visible.