Last week, I was woken up by an absurd sound that I had never heard before coming from my phone. What appeared on my screen was an AMBER alert issued by the state of California, notifying me of two child abductions that had just taken place. In the alert, detailed information like the license plate, model, and color of the kidnapper’s vehicle were included. Anyone who had seen the vehicle was to contact the police.
The AMBER alert (America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response) is a child abduction alert system that originated in the U.S. in 1996. Since then, over 650 children have been rescued because of quick actions citizens have taken after seeing or hearing an alert and then notifying authorities with helpful information.
While on stage at the Fourth Estate Leadership Summit, Invisible Children’s Director of International Programs, Adam Finck, used last week’s alert to paint a stark contrast to the realities of child abductions happening abroad. “This was our society’s collective response. Two people abducted, thirty eight million people alerted immediately,” Adam told participants as he updated them on Invisible Children’s ongoing progress on the ground. “That’s what should happen. That’s how life should be valued, no matter where you live.”
Adam compared last week’s AMBER alert to the Mokombo Massacre that happened in 2009, when the LRA went on a violent rampage in Congo, killing over 300 people and abducting over 250 more in just four days. The worst part? Not one alert was issued, and communities had no way to warn each other of the impending LRA attacks. What’s more, the massacre went publicly unreported for months. This left our Programs team devastated, which led to the establishment of the Early Warning Radio Network.
Over the past three years, Invisible Children has expanded this network into 38 communities across central Africa, which has been a critical tool that has made ending the conflict a definite possibility. Combined with the rest of our efforts on the ground and your help, a world with #zeroLRA can be an actual reality.
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