On April 25th, 2009, tens of thousands of people from around the world came to The Rescue of Joseph Kony's child soldiers. We stood together demanding our leaders take notice of the children in Africa's longest running war. We got their attention. Congress responded by drafting a new bill - the LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act, legislation mandating the Obama administration to implement a comprehensive plan to arrest Joseph Kony and rebuild the war-affected regions.
But, it became clear after The Rescue that this bill was in danger of dying in the process of competing political interests. That's why we rallied again on June 22nd and 23rd of '09... this time in Washington D.C., to make sure this bill was noticed. With 2,000 constituents from around the country, we were trained how to effectively lobby our representatives into supporting this bill. We stormed Capitol Hill, holding over 500 meetings with Members of Congress. We made it clear how important an issue this was and that as their constituents we wanted them to sign on.
25 co-sponsors were needed to make sure the legislation was introduced into voting. In an unprecedented show of support, we had 80 Congressmen signed on by the end of the day. How It Ends was the largest U.S. lobby day ever focused on Africa.
Less than a year later - on May 12th, 2010 - the bill was unanimously passed through Congress. 12 days after that, on May 24th, we were invited into the Oval Office for a special ceremony to witness President Obama signing the bill into law.
History was made. We were all a part of it. And it was only possible through the advocacy of Invisible Children's supporters from around the world.
We made our President take notice, and on May 12th it became clear that this is How It Ends.
