"There are those who expect
the unexpected.
Those who cast their vote
for hope.
Those who believe that good
will triumph over evil.
We are those people...
We are the masses, misfits, moguls, media, Millennials,
doing what we can now,
with what we have-
Our Voice.
Our impact is only limited
by our willingness to change ourselves.
We are abducting ourselves
to pose the question to our leaders:
Is their life as valuable as mine?
We are shaping human history
by closing the divide between
resources and responsibility,
distance and disinterest,
awareness and action.
This is about redefining our role in the world-
putting purpose before profit.
It's about ending the longest running war in Africa,
setting the precedent for justice,
and finishing what was started.
We are here to amplify the chorus of their cries.
Rescue Joseph Kony's Child Soldiers."
I work with some of the most precious kids ever. I mean, ever. There is a boy named Caleb who used to make me "special picnics" and would freak out when his sister tried to sit down. Katie and her cousin Lincoln apparently wrote a cheer for me when I was gone one week. Isaiah has the most contagious smile and beautiful eyes. And Avery... man... I wish I was as free-spirited now as she is as a preschooler.
Yesterday at work, I talked to my co-worker about my involvement with Invisible Children and Resolve. She told me she had seen something recently on the news about it and asked if Kony really did take young children, or if they were a bit older. I looked around the room and took in the sight of my precious four and five year olds, and suddenly pictured them trying to carry a gun... or run from one. It absolutely took my breath away.
As it should.
It's easy to forget to put faces on the numbers of children affected by the LRA atrocities in central Africa. It's so easy to be so "patriotic" that you worry first and foremost about America and "the needs at home." It's so easy to make these stories of war simply that- stories. But how can I ever look at the kids at my work and not see our African brothers and sisters? How can I, one day, have children of my own and want them to be protected, knowing that I did nothing to protect the children of mothers just like me in central Africa? Mothers who hurt, just like me.
I believe it is our duty as members of a global family to rise up and fight against injustice. To use the voices that God has given us to cut loose the ties of poverty and slavery. Invisible Children has taught me that "some people are born into privilege... but privilege is relative. And what we have really been given is a responsibility to give back." I want to be one who gives back. What will you do with the life, the voice, the privilege you have been given?
"We're all here in this world for some reason or another. If you're aware of injustice, you can either ignore it, say there is nothing you can do about it, complain about it and not do anything, or put your energies into doing something about it... I don't believe that just because one person is born on one side of some imaginary line and another person is born on the other side means that a lot of people should be getting screwed through no fault of their own." -- Ben Cohen
