For the past week I have been out in Uganda working with our Africa leadership team on program strategy, budgets, and operations. It is in these planning meetings where organizational development occurs and where new plans are created. It was in one of these sessions four years ago that our teams agreed to expand our work to follow the LRA into the Democratic Republic of Congo and Central African Republic, a decision that fundamentally changed our organization.
It has been crazy to be out here during the global coverage of Boko Haram’s violent abduction in Nigeria. The news of over 250 girls being abducted from school by violent armed men hits very close to home for many of the families and communities in northern Uganda.
Yesterday we spent time at Sacred Heart Secondary School for girls, which is now home to a new 18-classroom block that was funded by incredible Invisible Children supporters who raised over $500,000 for its completion. It is a beautiful building with amazing students and faculty. It is the best of the best. One of the teachers even made the claim that “if you are a girl and you do not go to Sacred Heart, you are already falling behind.”
New 18-classroom block at Sacred Heart Secondary School, built with funds from Schools for Schools.
However, over 20 years ago this all-girls secondary school was the site of one of Kony’s first mass abductions. A group of 44 secondary school girls were abducted to become forced wives or sex slaves for the LRA senior commanders.
From that first abduction to today, tens of thousands of children have been abducted, hundreds of thousands of lives have been ruined, and millions of people have been displaced. Twenty years of child abductions by the LRA are still continuing to this day. This is totally, completely, and utterly wrong.
There are few things that command a global consensus, but the right of children to go to school free of the fear of being abducted, mutilated, or killed is one of them. From Newtown to Nigeria, we need to protect our kids.
Ben Keesey (far left) and Munduga Patrick (Invisible Children’s Head of Regional office, far right) with the Headteacher of Sacred Heart School.
The hardest thing in the aftermath of this mass abduction in Nigeria is that there is no clear way to help. The world needs new systems to confront this type of mass violence and injustice. We do not have the tools in place to peacefully disarm violent groups – but we need them. We know it’s possible, because we’ve seen it work with the LRA. Still, there is much more to be done.
We need to learn from past failures and successes to put into place rapid response strategies that protect innocent lives, while swiftly and powerfully holding accountable the perpetrators. The world needs to act quickly with the full weight of resources to protect young girls from being taken by the LRA, Boko Haram or any armed group committing violence against children.
And hope is possible.
This morning, a day after visiting Sacred Heart, we toured the child soldier rehabilitation center in Gulu that Invisible Children has been supporting. While there, we met a boy named Walter. Walter was abducted during the third grade. He was held captive by the LRA for 16 years and was forced to do horrible, unspeakable things as a child soldier. Tomorrow he is going home. He is leaving the rehab center to do his first home visit since he was taken by the LRA. When asked what he is looking forward to most after being gone for 16 years, he said, “I don’t really know what to expect.”
Could you?
After sixteen years in captivity, he escaped with other members of his group after listening to Invisible Children’s “Come Home” messaging on the radio and seeing Invisible Children defection fliers. He is ready to start a new life free from violence and free from fear.
The world failed to confront the crimes of the LRA for far too long. And now the international community has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to finish the job and track down Joseph Kony and the remaining LRA. Let us not make the same mistake with Boko Haram or with any other armed group that is going to prey on children.
We are all responsible, even if we are not to blame. So let’s show up.
-Ben Keesey
Invisible Children CEO
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