By Comms Blogger Roberta Barnett
You’ve probably seen it, read numerous blog posts about it, thought about it, and maybe even discussed it with your chapter. And no matter how you feel about Invisible Children, the campaign, or its intermediate goals, it’s important to bring it full circle to realize that the end goal, putting an end to atrocities perpetrated by the LRA on children and families in Central Africa, is pretty much the same.
Only moments after STAND’s Student Director Daniel Solomon spoke earlier today, George Clooney, UEG President Tom Andrews, Enough Project’s John Prendergast, NAACP President Ben Jealous, and U.S. Repesentative McGovern (D-MA) were arrested for crossing a police line outside of the Sudanese Embassy in Washington D.C.
Sudan, South Sudan
In the New York Times, an American aid worker reports on the fear inspired by government rocket fire in the Nuba Mountains.
A little foggy on your knowledge of Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army? Want to do your own fact-checking on the Kony 2012 video? We put together a brief overview of the history of Kony and the LRA as well as a summary of Invisible Children and Enough’s policy asks in Kony 2012.
Important Historical Actors
Perhaps you’ve watched the Kony 2012 video, or at least seen it posted tens of times on your Facebook newsfeed, blasted across the Twitterverse. The energy surrounding Invisible Children’s campaign is unprecedented. The Kony 2012 documentary film has ricocheted around the globe, accumulating over 77 million views on Youtube and more than 13 million on Vimeo since its launch. Millions have shared the video on Facebook and the Twitter hashtag #stopkony has been trending worldwide.
Sudan, South Sudan
South Sudan announced it was seeking US$99 million in funding to conduct a census, which has been encountering that may prevent the exercise planned for 2014 from taking place.
By Chapter Leader Gillie Collins
Nobel Prize winner and Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi said “we will surely get to our destination if we join hands.” As anti-genocide activists in the U.S., how do we join hands with the Burmese people from thousands of miles away?
Syria
By Chapter Leader Rachel Wald
By Comms Blogger Tyler S. Bugg
In a letter to the president of the U.N. Security Council, Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, warned that the Khartoum government’s restrictions of international aid workers and emergency assistance packages to Sudan’s South Kordofan and Blue Nile regions is placing the area “on the brink of” a humanitarian famine crisis.
When does an “on the brink of” crisis become a “present and current” crisis? I find it already has.
