#josephkony

[kolanutprod]

*Lil John voice* Yeaa! Right about now it’s time for the Real Warlord Roll Call!! Now when your hear your African warlord being called you leave a comment! #charlestaylor #omarhassanahmadalbashir #josephkony #saniabacha #hailemariammengistu #robertmugabe #mobutuseseseko #gaddafi #jeankambanda #boscontaganda #hissenehabre #thomaslubanga #jeanbedelbokassa #fodaysankoh #generalbuttnaked All jokes aside these were the worst of the worst. But we at Kolanut thought if y’all write about #OdaNobunaga who was a tyrant why can’t we write about ours? So here is the controversial #16strikes #webtoon where you get to experience the spirit of the lords of war. #kolanutproductions #afroanime #africancomics #ncu (at Ontario, California) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cn5o65Wp-Cw/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[eliafrom42]

Digital Activism Using Art... Invisible Children

Πολλές δράσεις αναπτύχθηκαν μέσα από τα ακτιβιστικά κινήματα των καλλιτεχνών, με αποτελέσματα που ικανοποιούσαν τον στόχο. Μία από αυτές ήταν η κινητοποίηση των Invisible Children. 

Το 2012 η ομάδα Invisible Children παρήγαγε και δημοσίευσε στο διαδίκτυο την ταινία μικρού μήκους Kony 2012 η οποία έγινε πολύ γρήγορα viral με 99 εκ θεάσεις. 

Η ταινία είχε ως στόχο να προωθήσει το φιλανθρωπικό κίνημα Stop Kony και να ασκήσει πίεση στην κυβέρνηση των ΗΠΑ για να δράσει εναντίον του αφρικανικού στρατιωτικού και παραθρησκευτικού Joseph Kony, εγκληματία πολέμου, ώστε να συλληφθεί στο τέλος της καμπάνιας.

[positivedevelopment]

Monthly Roundup - March 2022

Celebrating 25 Years of the UN's Children and Armed Conflict Mandate: How Far Have We Come, And Where Do We Go From Here?

"This commentary reflects on the progress made over the past 25 years, remaining gaps and challenges, and emerging concerns for children in war. It also provides recommendations for the years ahead."

Access HERE

Morocco inaugurates International Center for Research on Prevention of Child Soldiers

"Morocco has inaugurated the International Center for Research on the Prevention of Child Soldiers with the aim of contributing to the fight against the recruitment of child soldiers, through the dissemination of research to be carried out by the Center."

"Through academic research, partnerships and collaborations, the Center will deploy strategies to deal with all forms of enlistment of children and conduct an assessment and census of unregistered child soldiers, while offering innovative solutions to combat their exploitation in armed conflicts."

Ugandan rebel Joseph Kony: the latest US arrest bid raises questions

"The US, through its embassy in the Central African Republic, recently published a warrant offering up to US$5 million for information leading to the capture of Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony. The US had previously announced the bounty in early 2013. It has been on the trail of the Lord’s Resistance Army leader since the early 2000s, spending at least US$800 million on efforts to bring him to book."

BOMOKO NA BOSEMBO | UNITY IN TRUTH FOR PREVENTING VIOLENT CONFLICT AND ATROCITIES

"The project is focused on advancing truth, justice, and reconciliation processes that address local legacies of mass atrocities and prevent further violence in communities spanning the border between northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and South Sudan."

The ghost elephants haunting Angola

"Legend says there are elephants hidden in the highlands of Angola, swathed in mist and never seen by humans before. The National Geographic Okavango Wilderness Project’s Kerllen Costa and Dr Steve Boyes are on a mission to find them and unearth their secrets."

[newzradar]

Former LRA leader, ex-child soldier, sentenced to 25 years in prison

[charles-ed-aguilar]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Charles Ed II Aguilar (@charles.ed.aguilar)

#ReligiousLeaders (from different religions) receive #COVID19 mitigation equipment from ADRA. ADRA has had several activities in this former #JosephKony stronghold. The chant below highlights some of the activities ADRA supports. Thank you ADRA Sweden for the continued support! Translation of the chant: ADRA oyee.......oyeee #Psychotherapy...ADRA #PeaceBuilding...ADRA #StopViolence...ADRA #HygienePromotion...ADRA #HandWashing Giveaways...ADRA #Facemasks...ADRA #SchoolBooks...ADRA #SchoolSupplies...ADRA #Bicycles... ADRA Even if not all received the services...ADRA #Uganda #PearlOfAfrica #Acholi https://www.instagram.com/p/CFqq0GHBwso/?igshid=1kpbal6ep9t92

[facondevie]

Earlier this year both the U.S. and Uganda said Joseph Kony was no longer a threat and they called off the search for him and his followers. General Thomas Waldhauser, the head of U.S. Africa Command said that Kony is irrelevant and his regime is coming to an end. The U.S. said four of the five LRA leaders were captured, but Kony is still hiding. Major General Donald Bolduc, the commander of U.S. Special Operations in Africa, views this as a success story because when they first brought in troops there were 3,000 LRA members and now they have less than 100. 

“Both the U.S. and Uganda have called off the search for notorious warlord Joseph Kony and his followers, the Lord’s Resistance Army, saying that Kony’s power has dwindled to the point that he’s no longer a threat.

The group carried out brutal murders, rapes and mutilations, and was known for kidnapping children and forcing them to become soldiers. Uganda has been battling Kony and his followers for decades, and U.S. Special Operations forces joined the search for the warlord in 2011.

A viral video in 2012 brought Kony international infamy.

In late March, the U.S. announced that the hunt for the Lord’s Resistance Army was no longer a priority. ‘Kony’s not an issue,’ Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, the head of U.S. Africa Command, said at a news conference. ‘He’s irrelevant…. This thing is coming to an end.’

The removal of U.S. troops from the search was officially announced on March 29. The U.S. stated that four of the five top leaders of the LRA have been captured, while Kony remains in hiding with a dwindling number of followers.

This week, Uganda announced that it, too, would be withdrawing troops from the Central African Republic, or CAR, where forces have been searching for Kony.

Uganda said the LRA is now ineffective. But a spokesman for Uganda’s military also told Reuters that his country was discouraged by a lack of international support for the operation.

Maj.-Gen. Donald Bolduc, commander of U.S. Special Operations in Africa, told NPR’s Ofeibea Quist-Arcton that ‘this is a success story.’

‘With our African regional task force partners, we encountered an LRA there that was 3,000 strong — now down to less than 100,’ he said Wednesday. ‘We’ve completely disrupted and degraded and defeated his organization. Kony is sick and he’s on the run.’

Joseph Kony was relatively little-known worldwide when a group called Invisible Children made a short film, Kony 2012, that became incredibly popular online. The movie had some factual errors, and people questioned its focus and its framing. But the ‘Kony 2012′ campaign undeniably raised the profile of the LRA and brought attention to atrocities committed by Kony and his followers.

After that viral success, Invisible Children struggled to figure out how to cope with mass attention, as NPR’s Sam Sanders reported in 2014. The group’s founder had a public breakdown, and the group was understaffed for the amount of attention — and money — the received.

In the years since, Invisible Children has reinvented itself. Foreign Policy reported last month that instead of funding social media campaigns, the group is now ‘on the front line of a covert war against the LRA.’

The organization ‘runs a daring program to supply civilians with high-frequency radios to track rebel movements across a 61,000-square-mile expanse of Congo and the Central African Republic,’ Foreign Policy reports — ‘pioneering a controversial approach to humanitarian aid that treats intelligence gathering as a core objective and military force as a legitimate avenue of justice.’

The U.S. and the U.N. have both expressed concerns that the withdrawal from CAR might leave a vacuum in the area.

In a call with reporters on Thursday, Waldhauser said the U.S. was committed to providing ‘training and exercises’ to forces in the region. ‘We are certainly aware of the fact that we do not want to leave a void there,’ he said.”

[carolleejamieson]

://www.generosity.com/education-fundraising/hope-for-post-war-children-in-northern-uganda/x/13113817

[kharmasabits]

Some kind of drifters

[charliepecoraro]

Incredible!! (Regram @jradruss) #invisiblechildren #kony2012 #josephkony

[socialnn]

Remember this man? He is the point of target in the video of Invisible Children that went viral about a year ago. The story never faded. Now a question is raised of how to crowd-fund to hunt down Joseph Kony. Click on the image for more details.

[charles-ed-aguilar]

#Cooking #SheaButter the traditional way in #Agago #Uganda. 🇺🇬 #ADRA empowers and builds the capacity of women (most are survivors of #JosephKony atrocities) through its SCALE Program in partnership with ADRA Sweden. 🇸🇪 #ADRA #SDG5 #IWD2018 #PearlOfAfrica #iPhoneoGraphy #InternationalWomensDay #SustainableDevelopmentGoals

[citadelinafrica-blog]

Motorcycle Rides, Joseph Kony, New Friends, and Mountain Camping: Howdy from Kampala!

Hello everyone! 

Well I've got to hand it to Marc — he's really kept the blog going lately as I've stressed over trying to deal with figuring out the rest of my summer, post-July 1st: London School of Economics, Chicago Booth School of Business, etc...but more on that on another blog at another time!

For now, I feel I owe our readers a quick update on all we've been up to lately. The last time you heard from me, we had just arrived to Gulu...so let me see if I can fill in some gaps!

In Gulu we had an amazing experience. We profiled two *amazing* groups for our work: Krochet Kids International and 31 Bits. We were so excited to see each group's unique spin on social enterprise and, from a personal point of view, I was so enriched by seeing people working in jobs and for companies that they clearly loved, and that clearly made a difference. I hope I can achieve this when I enter the professional world here pretty soon!

Gulu itself was a great town. One of the coolest people we've met on this trip, Ben Antonius from Krochet Kids, showed us all around and introduced us to a fantastic restaurant owned by a Ugandan-born Italian with, believe it or not, amazing apple bacon pizza. (Not applewood-smoked bacon...but apples, plus bacon! It was delicious.)

Our few days in Gulu were capped off with a great experience camping, pictures from which can be seen in Marc's earlier post. We rode a motorcycle about 2.5 hours out of town to a fort with an interesting history (http://www.monitor.co.ug/artsculture/Travel/-/691238/856722/-/n5ut7z/-/index.html); unfortunately, the sham guides we paid to show us around knew nothing of this history (despite their official status with the Ugandan Tourism Authority), so we soon bounced and headed back to Gulu. The trip was so worth the night climb to the top of the rocks, and then the night's sleep in a tent on that same small rock ledge, and then the amazing sunrise to which we woke up the next morning, though. What an incredible experience. 

A side note: the very rocks we camped in, just a few short years ago, were used as a hideout post and observation point by the infamous Joseph Kony, who took hundreds of children from the immediately surrounding area as child soldiers. The young man who took us out camping on his motorcycle, in fact, had lost both parents to Joseph Kony and his band of insurgents and had had to flee the area as an 11-year old to avoid being captured as a child soldier. This kid is still a teenager — several years younger than me — but to think of what he's been through, and how sadly representative of the entire region his experience is — it's just so sad. It was a harsh reality check...

Moving on from Gulu, we rode a crazy bus (filled with people *and* livestock) about 6-7 hours south to Kampala. We hugely enjoyed this time in this amazing world city, which is distinctly African but still has enough Westerners and Western influence to feel very different from the places we've been spending our time. Marc and I just spent the day touring around the city and trying to find a replacement digital audio recorder, since ours broke in the ride down from Gulu. We never found one, which means a pretty big blow to our documentary work, but we are making do with the other equipment we have and trying to model that great African saying, TIA ["This is Africa"], which is really more a lifestyle than anything else. Like "Hakuna Matata." We met up in the evening with Ben Antonius who had come down on business, and enjoyed *amazing* cocktails at the Camel Club (www.camelclubuganda.com) and an awesome dinner at Yujo Sushi Bar (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Y%C5%ABj%C5%8D-Japanese-Restaurant/155425897837279). Both were definitely Western hangouts popular with the expat crowd, and it was the most money I've spent on one evening yet, but it was still much cheaper than a comparative experience would have cost back in the States and it made for an incredibly enjoyable evening. 

The next morning saw Marc and me off to Jinja, where we discovered an amazing hostel right on the side of a cliff over the Nile, with a bar almost literally suspended over the side of the cliff. We got some good work done on their wifi and watched a movie that night on Marc's computer in our room ("The Italian Job"), and then did our amazing whitewater experience the next morning. It was so much fun; I was so glad my first whitewater experience could be on the Nile. Check out the pictures, and expect GoPro video footage soon!

After spending that night back at the sweet cliffside hostel in a true, giant canvas Safari tent — and enjoying hanging out at the bar with Paul, a journalist for the BBC who went rafting with us, and with a bunch of students from Ohio State — we woke up the next day and headed back to Kampala, where we've now been for several days.

I'll end this post now, since I've brought you all up to speed with where we are now, but I will try to post again as soon as I can once we move on to Jinja Tuesday and Nairobi Wednesday. I've been absolutely loving Kampala and all the awesome places we've been and people we've met, so look for a great update on this leg of our trip soon!

[louiiiiiiiiii]

[a-mes-blog]

Children are Invisible.

Like I said, big things are going be happening at VT with Invisible Children!!!! GET PUMPED!!!!

Are YOU going to MOVE? SIGN UP TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE on November 17th:

http://invisiblechildren.com/movedc/

You can sign up to go to MOVE:DC and march around the White House next Saturday with thousands of others in order to bring a STOP to the LRA who is lead by JOSEPH KONY.

You can also message world leaders to be at the Global Summit on the LRA next Saturday - one message from you to them is more than powerful/helpful.

Help bring justice to the children who are invisible. Make a difference in their precious lives. You are able.