Freshmen Eva Decker and Alice Turner write letters to their hometown congressmen, President Bush and Yoweri Museveni, the president of Uganda, to pressure the Ugandan government to strive for peace.
On April 28, 35 members of Elon’s chapter of Invisible Children traveled to Washington, D.C., to participate in “Displace Me,” a national demonstration against the bloody war in northern Uganda that has ravaged the area and displaced more than 1.5 million Ugandans.
The Elon community joined thousands of young people across the nation to ask for peace by showcasing what it would be like to be displaced for one night.
More than 6,000 people camped out next to the Washington Memorial on the lawn of the National Mall in cardboard shelters.
Junior Caitlin Goodspeed said her time spent there symbolized the refugees in Uganda who were forced from their homes into Internationally Displaced Persons camps 10 years ago by the Ugandan government.
“It was a great experience to unite with 6,000 others fighting for the same cause,” Goodspeed said.
Goodspeed said Elon demonstrators gave up their material possessions to become “refugees” and spent the night outside in the cold, rainy weather to
experience what camp refugees experience on a daily basis.
“The restless, cold, damp night was harsh, but I don’t think it could have been as effective any other way,” freshman Parker Cramer said. “I feel more closely connected now to those in Uganda.”
The Invisible Children organization at Elon was founded by freshman Katie Meyer at the beginning of the 2006 school year and currently has 110 members.
“I was very excited by our turnout and that all of the students who came were there for the right reason,” Meyer said. “They were all really connected to the cause.”
The event started with a filming for the documentary about the event, designed to spread awareness of the cause. All participants also wrote letters to their senators, President Bush and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and took a stand to ask them to support peace in Uganda.
As a part of the program participants were asked to use their access to technology to call five people with their cell phones to spread word of the horrors which are ensuing in northern Uganda. They also took part in 21 minutes of silence to reflect about and commemorate the 21 years of war Ugandans have suffered.
Elon students, as well as other individuals at the demonstration, hold peace signs for a camera. Laryn Pool, who helped create the initial documentary “Invisible Children,” taped participants for another movie.
However, donations to the World Food Program have fallen $90 million short this year and daily rations for the refugees were cut in half as a result.
Invisible Children also said clean water is scarce, forcing many women to walk up to four miles a day to acquire water to sustain their families.
To represent this, Displace Me participants were only allotted saltine crackers and water and were only allowed to aquire them in typical camp fashion by women collecting water and men providing food.
While the camps were designed by the government to protect people from the rebels in their country, only 3 percent of the deaths which have occurred in Uganda were from the war; almost all casualties have occurred in the IDP camps as a result of poverty and poor living conditions, according to information presented by Invisible Children.
Meyer said in addition to learning more about the situation in Uganda, the trip helped to re-fuel Elon’s chapter of Invisible Children with their mission to continue spread awareness.
“It is important to remember that we are all brothers and sisters,” freshman Anna Davis said. “If it isn’t my family that is affected by this crisis, it is someone else’s.”
To help, you can donate to schools for schools, where American high schools fundraiser to benefit Ugandan schools, buy a “Black is for Sunday” bracelet, DVD or charity water online to direct benefit individuals inside the camps in Uganda.
For more information, please visit http://www.invisiblechildren.com/.