UK, US screen Kony war film
May 09, 2009
A documentary on the plight of the Ugandan children in rebel leader Joseph Kony’s captivity has been screened in Cardiff and other cities in the UK. It was screened at Cardiff University in Wales on Tuesday to students and members of the general public.
By Felix Osike
in Cardiff, Wales
A documentary on the plight of the Ugandan children in rebel leader Joseph Kony’s captivity has been screened in Cardiff and other cities in the UK. It was screened at Cardiff University in Wales on Tuesday to students and members of the general public.
The documentary, which highlights atrocities committed by the Lord’s Resistance Army rebels in northern Uganda in the last 20 years was simultaneously screened in the US, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and Canada.
“The Rescue of Joseph Kony Child Soldiers ,†gives a background of the conflict and has clips of the Kony massacres, the failed Juba peace talks and interviews with former abducted children, local leaders from the affected region and the International Criminal Court prosecutor, Moreno Ocampo.
A two minute preview is available at www.invisiblechildren.com.
Jay Frere-Harvey and Adam Palumbo from the NGO, Invisible Children, explained the aim of the campaign.
“We are on an awareness campaign about the humanitarian situation in northern Uganda. We use the film to show personalised accounts of children in northern Uganda,†said Palumbo.
In 2003, three young American filmmakers, Jason Russell, Bobby Bailey and Laren Poole from San Diego and California, USA travelled to Africa in search of a story. What started as a film making adventure transformed into much more when they discovered a tragedy in northern Uganda.
Last week, Invisible Children organised an event dubbed, “Rescue,†in which the participants across the globe voluntarily, ‘abducted,’ themselves and were ‘rescued’ after 24 hours in an attempt to raise global awareness.
In Cardiff, approximately 100 students marched from the Millennium Stadium to the University main building, where they camped and waited until someone ‘rescued’ them. The President of the Cardiff Model United Nations Society, Cosimu Montagu, who helped organise the event said: “We want to put pressure on the UK and other governments to recognise the problems and help Uganda capture Kony.â€
An estimated 150,000 people in different cities in the US, Canada, Australia, Mexico, the United Kingdom and New Zealand took to the streets on April 25, to show solidarity with the Ugandan children. In these countries, organisers asked prominent people in each community to ‘rescue’ the groups of protesters from ‘LRA camps’ set up at the locations.
The protestors also wrote letters to world leaders to help rescue the abducted children in the hands of Kony. In UK, the letters were sent to Foreign Secretary David Miliband.
In the US, talkshow host Oprah Winfrey ‘rescued’ a group gathered in front of her production studio.
Invisible Children seeks to raise funds for the reconstruction of northern Uganda, especially in the education sector.
“We have a programme to provide scholarships to secondary school children. We currently have 690 students in Ugandan schools, 55 in different universities and one student Nancy Achii who was granted a scholarship at Boise State University, Idaho in the US,†said Palumbo.
He also said there are 11 schools in northern Uganda which have links with schools in US and Canada.
On sale in Cardiff were, Invisible Children DVDs, T-shirts and bracelets and local bags made by former child mothers. These are shipped to overseas markets where they are sold and the money spent on education in northern Uganda.
UNICEF estimates that there are still about 4000 children in Kony’s captivity.
Two years of peace talks in south Sudan between the LRA and the Ugandan government collapsed in April when Kony, who is wanted for war crimes by prosecutors at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, failed to sign a final peace deal.
in Cardiff, Wales
A documentary on the plight of the Ugandan children in rebel leader Joseph Kony’s captivity has been screened in Cardiff and other cities in the UK. It was screened at Cardiff University in Wales on Tuesday to students and members of the general public.
The documentary, which highlights atrocities committed by the Lord’s Resistance Army rebels in northern Uganda in the last 20 years was simultaneously screened in the US, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and Canada.
“The Rescue of Joseph Kony Child Soldiers ,†gives a background of the conflict and has clips of the Kony massacres, the failed Juba peace talks and interviews with former abducted children, local leaders from the affected region and the International Criminal Court prosecutor, Moreno Ocampo.
A two minute preview is available at www.invisiblechildren.com.
Jay Frere-Harvey and Adam Palumbo from the NGO, Invisible Children, explained the aim of the campaign.
“We are on an awareness campaign about the humanitarian situation in northern Uganda. We use the film to show personalised accounts of children in northern Uganda,†said Palumbo.
In 2003, three young American filmmakers, Jason Russell, Bobby Bailey and Laren Poole from San Diego and California, USA travelled to Africa in search of a story. What started as a film making adventure transformed into much more when they discovered a tragedy in northern Uganda.
Last week, Invisible Children organised an event dubbed, “Rescue,†in which the participants across the globe voluntarily, ‘abducted,’ themselves and were ‘rescued’ after 24 hours in an attempt to raise global awareness.
In Cardiff, approximately 100 students marched from the Millennium Stadium to the University main building, where they camped and waited until someone ‘rescued’ them. The President of the Cardiff Model United Nations Society, Cosimu Montagu, who helped organise the event said: “We want to put pressure on the UK and other governments to recognise the problems and help Uganda capture Kony.â€
An estimated 150,000 people in different cities in the US, Canada, Australia, Mexico, the United Kingdom and New Zealand took to the streets on April 25, to show solidarity with the Ugandan children. In these countries, organisers asked prominent people in each community to ‘rescue’ the groups of protesters from ‘LRA camps’ set up at the locations.
The protestors also wrote letters to world leaders to help rescue the abducted children in the hands of Kony. In UK, the letters were sent to Foreign Secretary David Miliband.
In the US, talkshow host Oprah Winfrey ‘rescued’ a group gathered in front of her production studio.
Invisible Children seeks to raise funds for the reconstruction of northern Uganda, especially in the education sector.
“We have a programme to provide scholarships to secondary school children. We currently have 690 students in Ugandan schools, 55 in different universities and one student Nancy Achii who was granted a scholarship at Boise State University, Idaho in the US,†said Palumbo.
He also said there are 11 schools in northern Uganda which have links with schools in US and Canada.
On sale in Cardiff were, Invisible Children DVDs, T-shirts and bracelets and local bags made by former child mothers. These are shipped to overseas markets where they are sold and the money spent on education in northern Uganda.
UNICEF estimates that there are still about 4000 children in Kony’s captivity.
Two years of peace talks in south Sudan between the LRA and the Ugandan government collapsed in April when Kony, who is wanted for war crimes by prosecutors at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, failed to sign a final peace deal.