On Saturday Kansas City was one of 100 cities holding The Rescue to raise awareness and support for the invisible children, with the aim of ending a war that’s been devastating Uganda for 23 years or so. In previous years invisible children did other events like Global Night Commute and Displace Me. The Rescue was set up differently. The idea is you are there at your “camp” as long as it takes to get “rescued.” It is meant to be a symbolic gesture that we must wait, as our little brothers and sisters are forced to “wait” in LRA-camps. As of this writing on Monday morning, 11 cities (including Chicago, Austin, Wichita, Vegas, Albuquerque, Richmond, Spokane) still await rescue.
What does it take to get rescued? These things all help determine you have a successful rescue.
- media attention.. getting the rescue covered, getting attention on child soldiers, getting attention on the call to policy to HELP
- letter writing.. all “abducted” must write at least 2 letters to senators or other leaders calling for protection of LRA-affected areas, allied diplomatic support, material support for negotiating with Kony and other leaders, etc. and the release of lower level combatants (including child soldiers)
- attention from a person of cultural influence (or mogul).. could be a politician, could be a talk-show host, could be Ashton Kutcher. Get a mogul to your city’s Rescue in order to get freed.
- money.. raising through donation approximately $5 per”abductee” at your camp to be donated to invisible children’s efforts
So the Rescue in Kansas City got covered by at least a few local/regional news stations and papers but I never heard final numbers on that. There was a tornado warning on Saturday. When the sirens went off, organizers decided it would be best to take cover parking garage style. And it was certainly something to see several hundred people, mostly 15-25 year olds, I’d say, crouching down in a huge cement room to solemnly write our representatives where it’s dry enough to write.
