By: Sara Sonne
"A war older than its warrior" was the logo imprinted on Chris Ward's T-Shirt.
The co-founder of the BYU Invisible Children club wore the shirt to raise awareness of the children soldiers fighting in Uganda; he wanted people to ask him about his shirt.
Ward, a geography major, and his club, were promoting the upcoming showing of the documentary Invisible Children, which aired three times last week. The documentary follows three young adults who took a trip to Uganda in 2003 and focuses on the lives of the children who must travel to their city hospitals to avoid being enlisted in the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).
Seeing the film last year was what inspired Ward, Jared Gillespie, a senior majoring in marketing and advertising, and Eric Crowther, a junior majoring in international relations and co-president of Students for International Development, to start the BYU Invisible Children club.
Crowther said the documentary was the most powerful and motivating film he has seen. He could not believe he had never heard about the war before seeing the film.
"It made me think 'if I don't do something, who else is going to?'" Crowther said.
So, the three of them, along with others did do something; they created a group whose purpose is to help students become aware of the problems going on in Uganda.
The club is working to motivate students to write letters to governmental leaders in support of peace talks between the Ugandan government and the LRA, Gillespie said. There is new sense of urgency to do this because the cease-fire between the government and the LRA ended Feb. 28.
Approximately 480 people attended the screening of the documentary last week. The group was hoping for 150 people but found three additional rooms to air the film when more people came, Gillespie said.
"The film was somewhere in between disheartening and motivating," Scott Jackson, a freshman majoring in international relations and recent member of the club, said. "But I think you have to feel your wounds to recognize that you have to change things."
The BYU group is currently focusing on becoming a "Schools for Schools" university and getting students to participate in the "Displace Me" event in Denver, April 29.
"Schools for Schools" is a program helping to rebuild schools in Northern Uganda and providing the children with a variety of essentials such as water, books, new technology, and teachers. Ward said the BYU Invisible Children group is hoping to sign up for this within the next month.
They also plan on participating in "Diplace Me," in which people from around the United States will gather in certain cities to spend the night there in order to bring national awareness of the effects of the war in Uganda .
Kerstin Zielke, a senior majoring in humanities, was in charge of a benefit concert for the Invisible Children's group that was at Muse Music on March 2.
"After seeing the film last year, I felt like I had a responsibility to help the children, that I needed to raise money," Zielke said.
The group broke the record for highest attendance with 241 people and raised over 1200 dollars. Zielke said a big part of the reason so many people attended was to help out the cause. The money raised will go to the "Schools for Schools" program.
Copyright Brigham Young University 6 Mar 2007
