rescue me..

vanessa & i before our journey..

this post is long long over due.
a month to be exact but, i've just been really busy with school and life in general.
bad excuse maybe but, it's legit :)

anyway,
this post is about the "invisible children: rescue me" event.
on saturday april 25th, my roommate vanessa and i participated in the 3rd annual Invisible Children awareness event. i went to the "Global Night Commute" in 2006 in Dallas, "Displace Me" in 2007 in Austin, and then now "Rescue Me" here in Sydney.
A little background: invisible children is an organization started by 3 men who went to Africa just to document the war taking place in Uganda, and what they found was something beyond what they could ever fathom. they discovered that Joseph Kony, the leader of the LRA (Lord's Resistance Army) was kidnapping young boys ranging in ages 5 to 14, forcing them to learn how to fight. these boys had to hike 2 to 4 miles every night to the camps or to run away and hide.
the first year was to simulate what it is like for the children and we walked in silence for 3 miles and camped out, writing letters to our government officials.
the next year in austin, the theme was "displace me" where we brought cardboard boxes to build "houses" for us to stay in. we also had a 23 minute silence to remember the 23 years the war has been taking place, and wrote letters to government officials.
after this event, a peace treaty/cease fire was signed between Joseph Kony and the leaders of Africa so the people at IC thought a change was taking place.
however, when the 3 men went back to Uganda to check up, they found that Kony was kidnapping the boys again and forcing them to fight.
this year, IC decided it was time to bring mass awareness to this problem. the point was to be "abducted" and walk to a certain "LRA camp site" and wait for a mogul (celebrity or person of influence) to rescue us.
we also were to have media come and do a story on the event. we started the event at 3 when we walked across the harbour bridge (starting at milson's point, ending at the fleet steps) and then sat and waited for our mogul or the media to rescue us. there were about 3,000 people at our event and it was absolutely beautiful. we also walked in groups of about 20, holding on to a rope, as to simulate the rope the children are tied to every night, so they don't run away. my friend vanessa and i walked in silence and just thought of the children.
holding onto the rope.

when we arrived at the site, we took pictures and footage for the film the organization is going to compile together and then just hung out for a bit. we wrote letters to the Prime Minister, Mr. Rudd, and the Governor of New South Wales. we even had an awesome dance session to Bob Marley's "Buffalo Soldier." it was so so good. we waited and waited for the media to come and cover us but, unfortunately no one ever came. however, our mogul did. it was an actor named Damien .. and he was on the hit tv show "Underbelly." Vanessa and i had no idea who he was but we still took a picture with him and felt cool.
around 10 o'clock, everyone got up and we hiked to the site where we would be sleeping. we stayed at the barracks, on the gravel, where the first immigrants stayed when they first got to Sydney. we only had our comforters from our beds and sweaters to keep us warm. needless to say, it was not the best night sleep but we were doing it for the children.
one point of the event was to raise the 4 flags we were suppose to raise.
red was for media rescuing us
green was for $5,000 raised
white was for 5,000 letters written
purple was for the mogul rescuing us.
we only raised the white and purple flags but almost the green.
it was sad that the media never came to rescue us but the Sydney Harold interviewed the leaders of this site.
this event took place in 156 cities all over the world and i am so thankful and blessed that i was able to be a part of it.
i will continue to pray and do my best to help stop Joseph Kony from mistreating and kidnapping these young children, and i hope you all would maybe take a look at helping this organization and these children too.
www.invisiblechildren.com

at the LRA camp site where we waited for our mogul & media




i love you all and am sorry i haven't written in a while.
i will be writing a post about my trip to the opera house & the ballet soon, so, keep looking..
xoxox
dustialynn