Wow! It's so hard to believe how far Invisible Children has come all of these years. Especially since I became extremely active in the organization.I was able to be apart of Coalition at Shawnee Mission West High School. I was able to help organize our walk, which would symbolize the night commuters and the child soldiers of Northern Uganda. I was apart of the Schools for Schools that fall of 2008. We raised I think about $500 for schools for schools. I am not really sure.
But I do know that since that fall, or even the summer before that I really became interested and stopping this war and giving these children the life they deserve.
Now the spring of 2009, I believe took my obession another step further. Here, this year was my last year of high school and was all about culinary, planning on going to culinary school and opening up my very first cafe/coffeeshop. Even though I believe that's still one of my dreams, it's not as urgent. During this spring, Invisible Children had a rally called "the Rescue." This event took place in 100 cities, 10 countries, and all of us sharing one voice for these unseen children apart of an unseen and unwanted war. We walked in a line holding onto rope symbolizing the children being forced to go to "the bush." We then would stay out until we got rescued by the media and a mogul. While we waited we wrote to our senators and congressmen about this war and giving them a possible solution. Now, it took six days before every city was rescued. The last city was Chi-town, aka Chicago, and there we got rescued by Oprah herself.
Later did we know that at the end of May we found out about a bill that was written by Senator Fiengold and my senator from Kansas, Senator Brownback. This bill was called "The LRA Disarment and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009." In this bill it would require the Obama administration to come up with a strategy within 180 days. In this bill it would also fund the recovery of Northern Uganda and anyother areas affected by the LRA.This bill came just in time. The end of June came two days in Washington, D.C.. This time was to learn about the war and how it's being affected and also how we can better talk to our government officials. We worked so hard to come this far we didn't want to sound completely ignorant about what we were talking about. But we heard from a delegation from Uganda, the founders of Invisible Children, Resolve Uganda, and the Enough Project. This time was great. I finally got to meet a friend for the second time, a friend I met first on Youtube, then on Facebook. It was great. Absolutely great. That night we got over 30 cosponsorships, and we couldn't ask for a more successful day.
The bill then went to the Senator Foreign Affairs committee and passed unanimously.
Then the bill was to go to the Senate Floor and then it went on hold because of Senator Coburn. We peacefully protested outside his office in Oklahoma City for like alot 2 weeks. Then he released his hold and then the bill passed unanimously.
Then just a couple weeks ago, the bill passed through the House Foreign Affairs unanimously.
Then in the last picture is the agenda for the Floor on the senate tomorrow. As you can see it's on the floor. Ready to be voted on, and then it will be on President Obama's desk for the last signature.
Then it will be 180 days for President Obama to strategize the capture of Joseph Kony.
We have come soo far. I am excited to say that I applied to be a roadie for Invisible Children and hopefully will be honored to be apart of their organization.
Invisiblechildren.com
