Whitney Brammer was an IC Roadie in the Spring of 2008 and is currently a teacher in Florida. She recently visited our San Diego office and brought along a slew of letters that her students wrote to Joseph Kony after learning about his reign with the LRA. Below is an intro from Whitney, and then quotes from the students’ letters. It makes me wonder – if we all had the mentality of our fifth grade selves, how different would our perspective be?

letters to Kony

“Last year, I taught fifth grade at an inner-city school near the heart of downtown. One week, I decided to do a unit on current central-eastern Africa. On the first day, I showed the IC film Emmy [from 2006]. I was blown away by how engaged my students were, and how effortless it was for me to keep their attention. Even my most challenging student showed signs of softening as they watched Emmy pretend to need a drink of water only to wipe a couple of tears from his eyes. My students actually seemed to care about these kids and what was happening to them in Uganda. On the last day of the unit, after watching and discussing another IC film, Sunday [from 2007], I asked my students to respond to the following writing prompt: “If you could write a letter to Joseph Kony, what would you say?” Immediately, every single one of my students began to write. I was amazed by the diligence and effort I was seeing from some of my students for the first time. Their thoughtfulness and depth superseded my expectations. I can honestly say that I saw a whole new side of some of my kids open up. Some were able to relate to Uganda’s developing world conditions, others showed great sympathy unlike before, while some displayed a freshly-birthed activist side saying, “Ms. B! We need to do something!” It was humbling and moving for me to witness my students connect and be moved by something in a way unlike anything I had seen from them before.” -Whitney Brammer

“Did you ever think about your own country? Did you ever cry? Did you ever think about what you are doing? Is this the way you find life?”

“Hopefully you will read this letter and you will question yourself because you are making too much damage in people’s hearts…they are kids, not men like you, they can’t fight you.”

“Joseph you have better things to do than be a criminal.”

“Stop robbing children because that’s bad. If they took away your kid, wouldn’t you be desperate?”

“…you don’t need to steal children and brainwash them to kill other people. That’s not going to give you what you want…God is watching you.”

“Why do you do this? It’s wrong, you shouldn’t. And can you please stop.”