The Journal

Issue date: 5/3/07 Section: LifeStyle

Media Credit: Brent Holzapfel Activists cheer as they are documented by the Invisible Children Crew. There were more than 67,000 participants from across the country in Displace Me. Invisible Children is a national organization dedicated to spreading awareness of the plight of Ugandan refugees.

Media Credit: Jamie Ford Senior Adam Hofbauer, a film studies major, and freshman Lauren Flecke, an education major, tear apart cardboard boxes to help build the wall surrounding their sleeping area for the night. The two were among the 18 people from Webster who traveled April 28 to Kansas City, Kan., for the Displace Me, hosted by the Invisible Children organization.

Media Credit: Brent Holzapfel Jim Rosenau from Lincoln Nebraska takes a photo of the 3,000 plus displaced people heading towards the stage. [Click to enlarge]

Media Credit: Jamie Ford While filming for parts of a movie to be made about the Displace Me event, participants cheered in celebration for bringing awareness to the refugees' plight. [Click to enlarge]

Media Credit: Brent Holzapfel The Kaw Point Park fills with a temporary cardboard community. [Click to enlarge]

Media Credit: Jamie Ford Webster freshman Lauren Flecke, left, Sally Yatim, center, and Thu Do, right, help to build the wall that surrounded the group of "refugees" that included some students from Webster University. [Click to enlarge]

Media Credit: Brent Holzapfel 10-year-old Killian Scott decorates his group's cardboard hut as family friend Tyler French oversees. "We are here to raise awareness. That others are not as privileged as we are," said Heather Scott, Killian's mother. [Click to enlarge]

Media Credit: Jamie Ford Andrew Ojede, a graduate student at Kansas University and Northern Ugandan, was the keynote speaker and shared stories of how his life was affected by the war; including how his sister was kidnapped, tortured and murdered by the LRA, Lord's Resistance Army. [Click to enlarge]

Media Credit: Brent Holzapfel An African band performs early Sunday morning to awaken sleepy activists. [Click to enlarge]

It was a cool night, and we were trying to sleep on some cardboard in a parking lot next to where the Kansas River diverges from the Missouri River. We were not alone though. Outside of our paper walls were approximately 3,000 other people with the same goal - raising awareness about the displaced people of Northern Uganda.


This is part of the Displace Me weekend, where 67,871 people lived in a simulated refugee camp April 28, in 15 cities throughout the United States. We traveled to Kansas City, Kan., where approximately 3,000 people, most in their early 20s, participated in a national event to show support for the displaced people of Uganda. We traveled with 16 other people to Kaw Point Park to offer our support and see what it was like to live like a refugee.


The Displace Me movement is part of the Invisible Children organization's effort to bring awareness of the giant humanitarian tragedy in Northern Uganda.


The Invisible Children is a group founded by three students who traveled to Uganda to make a documentary on children forced to sleep in parks and abandoned buildings to avoid being kidnapped and forced to be child soldiers - they are known as invisible children. After the documentary's release, the Invisible Children group formed and has been growing ever since. The group focuses on raising awareness of humanitarian issues in Northern Uganda, specifically the issues of displaced people and child soldiers.


The keynote speaker, Andrew Ojede, a Northern Ugandan, set the tone of the situation with stories of the horrors of a life in the displacement camps. He said his sister was abused, raped and finally killed by the rebel army, The Lord's Resistance Army. This was both the most interesting aspect and the most disheartening part of the evening.


The LRA is a rebel army that fights the Ugandan government and attacks the citizens of Northern Uganda and parts of Sudan and is responsible for some of the worst human rights abuse in Africa. Ojede spoke of how the army abducts thousands of children and then kills or rapes their parents. He told the attendees how children as young as eight are given cocaine mixed with gunpowder, and forced to kill other children. Ojede's speech brought some of the participants to tears, and silenced all the rest of us. Ojede was moved by the response and the amount of people who showed sympathy for the plight of his homeland.


"I feel great. I can't express my happiness … I'm really impressed," Ojede said regarding the level of interest that the youth of the United States has taken in this situation.


Food and water rations were not dispensed until later that evening. The idea was to experience what it was like to have limited access to food and water everyone was told to bring. But many of the activists brought more food and started eating in between video sessions and when doing assigned projects. Some even brought drums and guitars, not to sing about Uganda but to entertain themselves as well as participants of the opposite sex, as if they were in their university Quad. It was discomforting to see such actions.


Couples cuddled in their cardboard love boxes as the keynote speaker talked about his sister being slaughtered by the LRA. The atmosphere was akin to that of a "Save Northern Uganda" car wash at some points, like a party to raise awareness. The relaxed attitude during the night was slightly disconcerting, however, the majority of the participators seem to show a genuine interest in the issue. The event itself was well organized and professionally executed.


Every 15 minutes, video testimonials of the situation in Uganda were projected on a huge screen. The film included no actors, only the refugees speaking in their own words about the trials of life in a camp. As the videos played, we were given instructions on how to obtain food.


Only women between the ages of 18 and 22 would be allowed to get water, one bottle at a time, and only men would be allowed to get the crackers that would make up dinner and breakfast. This practice was to simulate the conditions of life in a refugee camp as best as possible, but could hardly match the real hardships of life in Northern Uganda. At one point, the video requested a 21-minute silence for solidarity - one minute for each year of the war in Uganda. The 3,000 participants slowly fell silent.


At night, people huddled in sleeping bags inside of the cardboard shacks they constructed to stay warm. The lucky few that arrived early were able to get space on the grass; the rest laid extra cardboard down to get comfortable on the concrete.


Around 7 p.m., the film crew started to film the crowd of participants holding signs that read "We go with out water" and "It's about faces with names" showing that the attendees of the "Displace Me" event would suffer for the people of Uganda. The film crew used a camera hooked up to a large crane-like device to film aerial shots of the crowd as they wore solemn faces or cheered and raised their hands in the air.


After all the filming was finished and the videos were over the whole group was given time to write letters to senators expressing concern for the current situation in Northern Uganda. The event itself was a chance to reflect on how fortunate we as citizens of the United States are, and the fact that we are in a position to help the less fortunate.

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