Seeing Kony 2012 graffiti and flyers everywhere today-- this one on Park Ave. anyone know what's happening? http://pic.twitter.com/Odv0FxcX
Apr 20, 2012
'Kony 2012' campaign's 'Cover the Night' takes to streets
By Michael Winter, USA TODAY
Activists with Invisible Children, the organization behind the Kony 2012
videos, are gathering around the USA and elsewhere for an event tonight
that's intended to further publicize the Ugandan warlord who abducts
children to be his soldiers and to seek international action.The big question: Will it deliver big numbers or fizzle?
Here's how the group explains "Cover the Night":
Today, April 20, 2012, we are serving our neighbors and promoting justice for Joseph Kony in our own communities. We are creative, we are many, and we are proving that the future of international justice depends on our mutual respect and collaboration. After a week of global advocacy, we are showing the world that our liberty is bound together.The San Diego-based group says in a news release, "Thousands of people worldwide have pledged to 1. Engage global leaders 2. Serve their local communities 3. Hit the streets."
Join us as we share the night and track what's being done.
By AP
The human connection extends around the world, but it starts across the street. So we're kicking the night off by serving in our own communities and earning the right to be heard globally by acting locally.Some suggestions included "park pick-up," "free car wash" and "act of kindness."
Here's what's envisioned for "Hit the streets":
When the sun goes down, we'll go into our communities and promote justice for Joseph Kony. You have between now and April 20th to plan something epic. Vandalism is lazy and hurts the cause, so your challenge is to keep it legal and go as big as you can.Under "ideas to get started," IC lists "making a Kony 2012 stencil," "chalk stencil," "clean graffiti" and "spray-paint T-shirt."
USA TODAY's Oren Dorell filed this report on the Washington event:
Organizers prepared for people to arrive for a Kony 2012 event at the Anacostia River front this afternoon.He writes in a follow-up, "25 people, some wearing red Kony 2012 T shirts, hooted and clapped as a banner unfurled."
They set out posters, cases of of bottled water and brochures at a converted boat house owned by the D.C. headquarters of Earth Conservation Corps. The group recruits young people from local neighborhoods and public housing to clean the river.
Jacob Acaye, a 22-year-old Ugandan who stars in the Kony 2012 film by Invisible Children co-founder Jason Russell, says the event is meant to bring attention to Invisible Children's cause.
"We want everything right everywhere," Acaye sayid. "No matter where you are, you should want things right near you. You should care."
Russell's film caused controversy because it urged young people to contribute or buy merchandise to publicize the atrocities of Joseph Kony. Kony leads the Lord's Resistance Army, which Human Rights Watch says has waged a campaign of terror in central Africa using children as soldiers and sex slaves. Critics of Invisible Children, however, say the issue is already being addressed. President Obama last year sent 100 combat equipped soldiers to Africa to help hunt Kony, now believed to be in the Congo and Central Africa Republic.
Acaye says where Kony and the LRA is at the moment is irrelevant.
"The fact that they continue abducting people, we want it stopped no matter where it is," he said.
Invisible Children has been accused of "dangerously oversimplifying a complex geopolitical situation and calls for a militaristic response," USA TODAY's William M. Welch noted earlier this week. Just after the charity's first video went viral, one of the charity's founders, Jason Russell, suffered a public psychotic breakdown and was hospitalized.
Some critics are dismissing "Cover the Night" as a stunt, saying Invisible Children is further harming Africans victimized by Kony, the the London-based Guardian reports.
"This Invisible Children campaign hurts. It's offensive," says Victor Ochen, founder and director of the African Youth Initiative Network (Ayinet) that works to rehabilitate victims of violence perpetrated by Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). "The people who have suffered at the hands of Kony don't want to promote him or make him famous. They want to rebuild their lives."The Guardian has put together a chart of facts and figures for Kony 2012.
