Making a difference, thousands of miles away

From Africa to Muncie, Ball State University students bridge the gap with the "Invisible Children" project.

By Dawn Araujo

Imagine that, in order to avoid rape, murder, abduction and torture, the entire Ball State student body was forced to flee Muncie, Ind., every night. With nowhere to stay, the whole campus would walk to Anderson, Ind., and sleep in the streets, only to wake up early in the morning and walk back to class. Now imagine that times two.

For decades, this has been the reality for 40,000 children in northern Uganda.

Northern Uganda has been embroiled in a civil war since 1986. That year a southern Ugandan named Yoweri Museveni took over the government in a military coup that established him as president. Strong regional differences between southern and northern Ugandans soon led Josephy Kony, a northern Ugandan, and his Lord’s Resistance Army to rise up against the Museveni government in an effort to free the northern Ugandan’s, or the Acholi, from marginalization.

But the LRA has not helped the Acholi. In fact, this rebel group is held largely responsible for the crimes committed against northern Ugandans in the last two decades. More than one million Acholi — about 80 percent of the region’s population — have left their villages to live in displacement camps. These camps are unsanitary and lack basic resources. One thousand people die in them every day.

Those who stayed in their villages were subject to the LRA’s guerilla attacks. The troops raped, murdered and dismembered village inhabitants before burning the villages to the ground. The LRA was particularly notorious for abducting the villages’ children and forcing them into its ranks. Once abducted, children as young as 8 years old were raped, beaten and forced to torture and kill as soldiers for the rebel army.

Insurgent in nature, the LRA has operated out of the Democratic Republic of Congo for the last several years where they commit the same acts against the Congolese.

The LRA has increased attacks on Congolese villages — killing more than 900 people and displacing more than 1,000 in the two months following the mission.

But the American media have not focused on these people, and that’s why so many students are taking action.

Junior Megan Veit first learned about the conflict in Uganda during her freshman year when a friend showed her the Invisible Children documentary. Veit is passionate about making a difference.

“Africa’s crises rarely reach our news,” she says. “If you believe that advancements in technology are bringing us closer together, it is time to start seeking out the issues that matter to a more global community. You no longer have an excuse for not knowing and not acting. We know that one person can’t always make a large difference, but you’re not the only one thinking about it.”

Veit works with Oxfam and Invisible Children signing petitions, sending e-mails and making monetary donations.

“Once you make yourself aware, you become impatient with doing nothing,” she says. “You seek any way to be involved. Don’t be afraid to contact members of government; they’re willing to listen.” She also talks to her friends about Uganda.

“Once the bug is planted, they’ll chew on it and, hopefully, be moved to action too. That’s how we start making a difference — one conversation at a time,” Veit says.

In April 2008 Veit attended a Displace Me event on Ball State’s University Green. Organized by then senior Ngofeen Mputubwele, Displace Me simulated the conditions of a northern Ugandan displacement camps. Students slept overnight in cardboard boxes and were given only crackers and bottles of water for food.

Like Veit, Mputubwele first became aware of the conflict in Uganda after watching Invisible Children’s documentary.

“I think I was really interested not only because of the situation, but because my parents are from Congo which neighbors Uganda. He says, “There are similarities. It’s almost a familial kind of tie.”

Displace Me was Mputubwele’s senior thesis—inspired by Invisible Children’s 15-city event of the same name the year before.

“I wanted to allow the students to be a part of effective change,” he says. “That’s what so cool about Invisible Children. They’ve got such momentum. All you have to say is ‘Invisible Children’ and people want to get involved.”

Mputubwele hopes the Invisible Children name will continue to spur action at Ball State. Although he graduated in May, Mputubwele says he will promote The Rescue, Invisible Children’s latest nationwide simulation event, on campus. He hopes to organize a group of students to travel to Indianapolis for the event in April. He is also working with sophomore Josh Lemieux to make Invisible Children an official group on campus.

Lemieux first became interested in Uganda during his senior year of high school. But he notes there is still a lingering apathy at Ball State.

During the fall 2008 semester, Lemieux headed Ball State’s School for Schools program — an Invisible Children philanthropic race where schools across the world raise funds for schools in Uganda in 100 days. The winning school raised more than $26,000. Ball State raised nothing.

“To be honest, there was a lack of effort on my part,” he says. But that was not the only problem. Only five students showed up to the three meetings he held to plan for the program. Furthermore, he says that “no effort was put forth to execute those plans.”

But like Veit and Mputubwele, Lemieux is dedicated to fighting student apathy. He is already working on events for the 2009-2010 school year.

“We are planning on having some Roadies [Invisible Children volunteers who show the documentary around the country] come to campus in the fall and speak in Pruis Hall, a Displace Me BSU in the spring, several fundraising events throughout both semesters, and more organized meetings throughout the semesters,” he says.

Mputubwele says it is vital that students get involved.

“I know that supporting Africa and African causes are really trendy right now and that puts off a lot of people to support it,” he says. “It’s just like the Holocaust—just like other crises that have happened. It takes individuals to speak up and to act for change to occur. Our government is a big, big machine and it takes pressure from people for things to happen.”