Sewanee Makes Visible Impact on Invisible Children

$14,348.12 is a lot of money-- a lot of money which will provide the children of Lacor Secondary School in Uganda with clean water, trained teachers, scholarships, lab equipment, and other school materials. After three years of hosting events to raise awareness for Invisible Children, Sewanee was named the top institution in the mid-Atlantic region and third in the nation for fundraising in the School for Schools program.

Raising over fourteen thousand dollars, Sewanee was the most successful school out of the eleven participating schools in its region. As the top school, Sewanee has been granted the opportunity to send one student to Uganda this coming summer in order to meet members of the Invisible Children organization and students within our sponsored school.

Allison Kendrick, president of Invisible Children at Sewanee, said, "Even though Sewanee was third in the nation, the top two schools were both high schools. Technically, Sewanee is the leading university in the nation to raise money for Invisible Children."

In 2003, three people from San Diego, California, discovered the abduction of children occurring in the war in Uganda. Upon realizing that no one was attempting to stop these atrocities, they created the documentary which spread across the country and became the nationwide movement that is now Invisible Children. The non-profit organization aims to reinvest in war-torn communities of Uganda and arrest the rebel leader, Joseph Kony who Photo by Invisible Children began the practice of using child soldiers.

Several students, including Kathryn and Allison Kendrick, Emily Luethke, Paul Dixon, Robby Shaul, and Elizabeth Garfield, brought Invisible Children to Sewanee through the umbrella organization Sewanee STAND in January of 2007. The students introduced the Schools for Schools program, and students on the mountain have been fundraising for Lacor Secondary School in Uganda ever since.

There have been several fundraising events for Invisible Children this past year, including dinner with a professor, a poster fundraiser, a poker tournament, and a booth at Sewanee's Arts and Crafts Fair. Members of the Sewanee community also generously provide general donations, and students active in Invisible Children often go door-to-door across campus to receive donations.

During the spring semester of 2009, many Sewanee students traveled to Chattanooga to participate in The Rescue, a demonstration across one hundred cities internationally to support legislation for the arrest of Kony. Participants in each city intended to spend the night outside every night until a representative of high political or media standing pledged their support for the legislation to apprehend the rebel leader. The students in Chattanooga were rescued by Zach Wamp, a Tennessee congressman.

This past summer a bill was introduced to Congress to mandate Kony's arrest. Wamp was one of the first congressman to sign, and since then, sixty-two senators and one hundred and fifty-seven representative from the house have signed on.

During the beginning of the semester, Kendrick traveled to Washington, D.C. to meet with seven of her Alabama representatives and urged them to sign on to the bill. Since her meeting, two of the seven have signed.

Kendrick says, "We're urging college and high school students to write letters, make phone calls, and set up meetings with their own state representatives. This bill has received more recognition than any other Africa-focused legislation in U.S. history, and it is all due to the work of young people."

This coming semester will hold several important events for Invisible Children, primarily a tentative trip to Oklahoma to attend a nationwide meeting petitioning Oklahoma's Senator Coburn to remove the hold he has placed on the bill. Kendrick asks all Sewanee students, particularly those from Oklahoma, to support the cause at coburnsayyes.com. The bill is crucial to the process of ending the war in Uganda and providing peace for the children. In addition, Invisible Children will hold a conference on campus and a representative from the organization in Uganda will travel to campus to speak with Sewanee students.