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Join a group of idealistic students from the International School for an innovative dinner, a thought-provoking movie about kids in Uganda, and discussion of what we can do to help.

When: Sunday May 20 6:00-9:00 PM

Where: Blackbox Theatre at the International School of Indianapolis 4330 North Michigan Road Indianapolis

Event is free. Questions? Ask Catarina Campbell of the International School: katersk8er@comcast.net or 317-652-9880

Here’s why Sunday’s movie screening, dinner and discussion at the International School is worth setting your VCR to tape the Simpsons. One of the most fascinating stories in humanitarian engagement is Invisible Children Inc. In 2003 three college students with limited funds and probably even less common sense went to Africa to make a documentary about the human costs of the war in Sudan. The result of their wandering with a camera in search of a story? A film about children in Uganda that is funny and clever, crude, still a bit naive. A sort of “Blair Witch Project” that looks at a real world horror story about “Night Commuters”: every evening tens of thousands of kids in Uganda walk miles from their refugee camps to cities so they can avoid being abducted and forced to join the “Lord’s Resistance Army” as child soldiers. You can see the film here.

The film “Invisible Children: Rough Cut” itself would be interesting but minor. What really matters is the movement the film has inspired.The Chronicle on Philanthropy (22 March 2007) has this to say:

Invisible Children a group founded in 2004 by three California college students, has raised more than $6-million to help children in war-torn northern Uganda. Its Web site features videos and other interactive tools designed to get young people involved in the cause. The site offers numerous low-cost ways people can support projects in Uganda, such as a Give Peace a Tri campaign, in which donors give up a small luxury — like a fancy coffee drink — to make a monthly gift as small as $3. More than 10,000 people have contributed through the group’s Web site, and thousands more have participated in offline events such as Global Commute, an all-night demonstration held nationwide to publicize Invisible Children’s cause.

This is an intriguing way of providing young people in the US with information and even an empathetic connection to kids their own age who are living under terrible conditions. In April a “Global Night Commute” was organized at IUPUI.

But even more intriguing is the possiblity not only of inspiring a sense of empathy or sympathy with unfortunate counterparts a couple of continents away. Technology allows kids in Indy to partner their schools directly with schools in Uganda.

San Diego, CA (PRWeb) February 13, 2007 — Invisible Children, a media-based non-profit organization dedicated to inspiring and educating youth around the world, and Digitaria, a full-service digital marketing and technology firm, today announced a new, interactive Web community called “Schools for Schools.” Schools for Schools is a program that inspires high schools from around the world to raise money to help bring war-affected schools in Northern Uganda to a nationally competitive standard. With a healthy mix of collaboration and competition, Schools for Schools exemplifies the future of online communities by taking a proven online social networking model and using it to combine small, independent efforts to make a huge difference….

Schools for Schools is a safe and secure, invitation-only online community, designed for the high school demographic - Invisible Children’s strongest supporters. Students are inspired to use creativity to raise money for the organization, and then to showcase ideas and communicate with other young activists. Schools for Schools is the first program to provide immediate data on where the money goes by providing participants with a visually interactive network. The “Real-Time Results” section of the Web site allows students to see the dynamic atmosphere of students across the world signing up, raising money and making a difference. Visual benchmarks on school profiles allow students to instantly understand the impact of their donation on five major categories: water, teachers, books, buildings and technology.

The International School’s “Movie and Activist Dinner” on Sunday is at least inspired by “Schools for Schools.” According to the webpage of Catarina Campbell — the event’s instigator — the event will be helping Layibi Secondary School in Uganda. Here’s what Catarina has to say about Sunday:

The guest speaker is Faustin N’Tala, a teacher from our school who was raised in the Dem. Republic of Congo and is currently working to develop an American-African coalition to reintegrate child soldiers into society. He is an amazing man. Our goal for this is give people a chance to emote to the cause. We feel that the more people who are stricken by the situation, the more activism the event will breed. People tend to have an aversion to things that are uncomfortable or depressing when it is often so important to take a look. We are trying to conquer that widespread aversion within the community and our generation toward the child soldier crisis. The event will be held in the Blackbox Theatre of the International School of Indiana. That is in the high school, brick building on Michigan. The event was started out of the gumption of a few students but we have gained support from the Student Government and a group called Coalition for Global Awareness. The school put together an Oxfam event last year but this is the first year of involvement with Invisible Children. As for the dinner! The meal involves an activity for those who come. When you enter the door, you recieve a card with the story of someone: you may be an American stock broker or a wheat farmer in Haiti. You are given a meal based on the socio-economic class you find yourself in. This demonstrates the serendipity of circumstance and how where you’re born can effect how easily you obtain the things you need.

So here are five reasons why this event is way cool, and deserves a lot of people attending.

1. I would never in a million years have thought of such a clever and thought-provoking dinner device. Kids today, they really are creative!

2. In March Indianapolis hosted a visit by Bukeni Beck (Congolese filmmaker who rehabilitates child soldiers), a former child soldier named “Madelaine,” and Golzar Kheiltash (international legal expert with Citizens for Global Solutions). Over the course of these couple of days it became apparent that Indianapolis could become a cutting edge site for helping on the issues of child soldiers and the effects of international conflicts on youth. It helps that one of the world’s foremost scholars on the topic, Prof. Siobhán McEvoy-Levy, is at Butler University. This event at the International School can help pull a lot of pieces together.

3. You can actually get involved with the Invisible Children movement this summer! Ambassadors for Children partners with Invisible Children, and will be leading a trip to Uganda in July, where they will help build a school and a fence to protect kids from being abducted into the Lord’s Resistance Army. Sally Brown of A4C will be at the International School to discuss the trip.

4. Scurrying mammals are promoting this event with tools that the techno-dinosaurs of Provocate can only stare at in bemusement. Catarina uses myspace and facebook to reach her peers. Provocate has been trying to figure out ways to coordinate mammals and dinosaurs, this will be a good first step.

5. What a great example of how new communications technology, inexpensive international travel, and innovative social networking techniques can promote local-to-local partnerships to solve global problems! Provocate exists to understand and support just these sorts of initiatives.

You should know before you go … If you want to learn more about the Lord’s Resistance Army, wikipedia has a nice bibliography.

If you like this event, check out …

• Dr. Chuck Dietzen, founder of the Timmy Foundation, discusses kids and international conflict at the Mid North Shepherds Center May 23.

• The People’s Foreign Policy exercise June 1 & 2 will be THE place for promoting this sort of locally-rooted global strategy. And social-networking guru Tom Glaisyer of Connect US will be featured June 2nd, giving techno-dinosaurs like Provocate a chance to learn how to connect with the facebooked mammals.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 16th, 2007 at 1:17 pm and is filed under Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.