In 2006, Invisible Children Uganda released Emmy: the story of an orphan, a film about a young boy who loses both his parents to HIV/AIDS. Not HIV positive himself, Emmy bravely faces a future without parents but surrounded by loving aunts and uncles who agree to care for him and his brother.
Last week we checked in with Emmy to see where life has taken him in the seven years since the bracelet video was released.
Emmy is in his first semester of college, studying video production. From a young age, Emmy recalls having an interest in using and learning about technology. While he struggled with textbook learning in secondary school, he was at home in practical classes and excelled in computer studies. Now, at the university he is excited to be taking courses like TV producing, music video production, 3D animation and motion graphics.
Emmy’s inspiration comes from multiple sources, including some photography classes he took when he was 10, Jon Chu’s Step Up movies, and working with the Invisible Children team on his bracelet video.
“The bracelet video really tuned my mind into a way of communicating with people and sensitizing them to what is happening,” Emmy says. “It gave me a direction.”
Later, Emmy joined the Legacy Scholarship Program, and he says he noticed the change in his life as he began to feel like he could plan for his future.
“The change has not been growing in a slanting slope, it just came up immediately,” Emmy says. “I was not looking much forward then, but with IC there has been training. You look forward to the future.”
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