Invisible Children: A Case Study

In 2003, three young film school graduates—Jason Russell, Bobby Bailey, and Laren Poole—decided to take a trip to Sudan to make a documentary. None of them had ever made a documentary before, and only one of them had ever been to Africa. They earned money by sending off letters to friends and family asking for donations, bought their equipment off of eBay, and got on a plane to Africa. They met up with Jolly Okot, who became their guide during their adventure. She offered to drive the boys to Sudan. However, on the way to Sudan, a truck in front of them was shot and the road became too dangerous to travel (Invisible Children: Rough Cut, 2003). Jason, Bobby, and Laren were stuck in Gulu, Uganda for the night (Sarette). Gulu is located in northern Uganda just south of Sudan, an area now considered one of the most dangerous places in the world (Thomson). While in Gulu, they quickly became aware of dozens of children flocking to the city. They asked Jolly what was happening, and she explained that every night the children would travel several miles on foot to the city to sleep in hospitals, bus stations, verandas, and anywhere else they could find space to curl up. She then told them a horrifying story: Every night, a rebel group called the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), led by a man named Joseph Kony, traveled through the villages, kidnapping children, killing their families, and forcing the children to become soldiers in his war against the Ugandan government. The children ran away to hide from Kony and his army (Deneen).

The rebel movement began in the 1980s with a woman named Alice Lakwena, who believed that the Holy Spirit spoke to her and told her to overthrow the government of Uganda. She gained a strong following, known as the Holy Spirit Movement, and lead a powerful resistance against the government. When she was exiled a few years later, Joseph Kony took over, claiming to be Lakwena’s cousin and saying that the Holy Spirit spoke to him as well. However, Kony’s following was not as large. The people of Uganda began to grow tired of the rebellion, and lost interest. In order to replenish his diminishing numbers, Kony and his rebels resorted to abducting children and training them to be soldiers (Eichstaedt xix). It is believed that over ninety percent of Kony’s troops were abducted as children (Batstone 111).

The Ugandan government has not done much to help the situation, though they have made attempts. In 1996 they began relocating citizens to displacement camps, where they hoped to be able to protect them from the LRA (Batstone 145). However, the camps were disgusting places full of disease, cramped space, and food shortages, and though the government promised to return these people—called internally displaced persons, or IDPs—to their homes, approximately one million people still live in these camps today (Eichstaedt 29). Now, in 2011, the war between the LRA rebels and the government of Uganda is the longest-running war in Africa, and has also been called “the most neglected humanitarian emergency” in the world today (invisiblechildren.com).

Jason, Bobby, and Laren knew that now that they had this information, there was no way they could ignore it. The result of their visit to Uganda was Invisible Children: Rough Cut, a fifty-five-minute documentary exposing the horror that until then seemed as though it could only exist in fiction. The film is fast-paced, described as having an “MTV-feel” as opposed to a “PBS-feel” (Sarette). In order to get their film out there, they used what is known as “guerilla marketing;” they recruited fifty college students to travel the country with them in a van to screen Rough Cut at roughly one thousand venues such as high schools, universities, and churches (Steers). These screenings marked the beginning of the Invisible Children movement. Once they saw their audiences’ reactions and realized the impact of their film, they founded Invisible Children, Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to exposing the plight of the child soldiers and seeing an end to the LRA’s reign (Khabie).

Invisible Children, Inc.’s outreach is unique; they use film as a primary tool for their outreach, producing both DVD releases and online videos. The organization partnered with Digitaria, a digital marketing and technology firm, to develop a brand and a website (Khabie). Since Rough Cut, Invisible Children, Inc. has released several other films and dozens of online videos. These films and videos are their main method for communicating with their supporters and distributing updates and calls to action. In addition to their online marketing, which also includes an email system and a frequently updated blog, the organization continues to travel around the country screening different films. Invisible Children’s outreach program is deliberately targeted to the population they want to impact: students. As mentioned before, their films and videos have a distinct “MTV feel” to them, and the majority of their screenings are held at high schools or universities (Sarette). Their films were also shown on the socially conscious television network Halogen in April 2010 (Chowning).

Invisible Children, Inc.’s calls to action are never general; they are always very specific, dedicating each video to one specific child. They design their campaigns around helping individuals, people with names, faces, and stories (Sarette). The Roadies—the volunteers who spend months traveling the country screening the films—actually bring some of the former child soldiers with them on the tours and let that individual tell his or her story firsthand (Sarette). The organization designs campaigns that get their supporters physically involved. For example, during the “Global Night Commute” in 2007, thousands of people walked several miles to a central location and slept there; the purpose was to raise awareness for the children in Uganda who would commute every night to avoid abduction by the LRA. During the “Displace Me” campaign, also in 2007, even more people left the comfort of their homes and spent the night in the streets to experience what it was like to be displaced (invisiblechildren.com). These tactics make the plight of the children of northern Uganda more tangible, even if it is just symbolic, and are therefore more likely to draw people into the cause.

In 2009, Invisible Children began a movement called “We Want Obama.” The organization created a Citizens Arrest Warrant for Joseph Kony, which was subsequently signed by 259,472 people. This warrant called on President Obama to take action against the LRA. Invisible Children came up with the LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009. The purpose of this law is:

“Stopping the LRA, by mandating President Obama to devise an interagency strategy to prevent LRA violence, which should include a multilateral plan to apprehend top LRA leaders, encourage defections of rebel commanders, demobilize child soldiers, and protect civilians from rebel attacks; and investing in sustainable peace, by targeting US assistance to recovery and reconciliation efforts in northern Uganda, which are essential to rebuilding and healing war-affected communities and preventing future conflicts” (“LRA”).

There were three separate campaigns involved in the movement. The first was called “How it Ends.” On June 22 and 23, 2009, nearly two thousand people traveled to Washington, D.C. to meet with their elected officials. They joined over four hundred lobbying meetings to request that Congress pass the bill. As a result of this campaign, sixty-six Representatives and seventeen Senators co-sponsored the bill. The next phase was called “Hometown Shakedown.” On November 18, 2009, thousands of activists made phone calls to their Senators and Representatives, again attempting to persuade them to pass the bill. As a result, seven Senators and six Representatives co-sponsored, including Majority Leader Harry Reid and Foreign Relations Committee Chair John Kerry. The support of these two men led to the Senate’s first vote on the bill in December 2009. The fight for the bill went on for the next six months (“LRA”).

The third step of the movement was called “Dr. Coburn: Please Say Yes.” On December 19, 2009, Senator Coburn blocked the bill from passing in the Senate; his reasoning was that he had concerns about the source of funding for recovery and rehabilitation of Uganda. Over fifty activists pledged to stand outside Coburn’s office for twenty-four hours a day until the block was lifted. Eleven days later, Coburn finally pledged his support. The next day, the bill passed unanimously in the Senate. By the end of the “We Want Obama” movement, the bill had a record-breaking amount of support from Congress: two hundred sixty-seven members of Congress cosponsored the bill. Due to the incredible amount of public support, President Obama held a public signing ceremony for the bill and released the first statement by any administration outlining the United States government’s commitment to ending the threat of the LRA (“LRA”).

Invisible Children, Inc. publicized the “We Want Obama” campaign through their blog and through online videos imploring supporters to help. The success of this campaign is a great example of how the organization operates through films and videos. The videos are shorter, more commercialized, and focus on whatever specific campaign is happening at the moment, or advertising for upcoming tours and events. The films are about bigger issues; Rough Cut is about exposing the plight of the children and raising awareness about the atrocities of the LRA. One form of media is not more or less effective than the other; both have specific purposes and both carry out their purposes quite successfully. The organization does not have huge distribution deals for their films; they have to rely almost exclusively on their own resources, and their success in promoting themselves has earned Bobby, Laren, and Jason appearances on popular television talk shows like Oprah and Larry King Live, in magazines like Rolling Stone and GQ, and endorsements by celebrities such as Pete Wentz and Kristen Bell (invisiblechildren.com). Invisible Children, Inc.’s goal is not to make as much money as they can, or become famous. Their purpose is to expose the situation in northern Uganda to as many people as possible and provoke a reaction from their audiences.

The original reaction to the first ten minutes of the film is typically humor; it seems as though it will tell the story of three young men who go on a crazy adventure in Africa, discover themselves, and return home with a fun story to tell. But as the film goes on, it has an intensely sobering effect; one particularly heartbreaking scene involves a young man named Jacob, who had escaped from the life of a child soldier and was being hunted by the LRA. He mentions early on in the film that the children do not cry; if they cry, and the rebels see them, the rebels will kill them for being weak. But towards the end of the film, when talking about his older brother who was killed by the LRA and what he would say to his brother if he saw him again, Jacob dissolves into heart-wrenching sobs, and the camera stays on him for almost two minutes as he cries. The filmmakers use images such as this, coupled with sad yet inspiring music, to create a dramatic effect. The audience can never fully understand the plight of these children and the lives they have led. The way the film is presented draws the audience in and makes them connect with the characters; Jacob becomes a protagonist of sorts, and when he breaks down into tears only a heartless person would not want to take him in his or her arms and comfort him.

In addition to the hundreds of thousands of people who participate in the campaigns and movements instigated by Invisible Children, many more thousands of people have helped in monetarily. One program started by the organization is called Schools for Schools (S4S). The goal of S4S is to raise the standards of secondary education in northern Uganda and to encourage and support rehabilitation and recovery purposes. Schools around the country are involved in a competition to raise the most money, which is used to build and reform schools in Uganda (invisiblechildren.com). According to the Invisible Children website, S4S raised over one million dollars this year. Donations also support the Legacy Scholarship Program, which provides scholarships and mentoring to high school and university students from northern Uganda. Thanks to the donations, Invisible Children, Inc. is currently able to provide scholarships to 563 secondary school students and 201 university students. Audience members have also joined the TRI Foundation, which requires them to donate three dollars a week, or twelve dollars a month, to Invisible Children. All of the money goes towards rehabilitation and recovery programs (invisiblechildren.com).

Overall, the audience reaction has been to take action. One young student said after a screening, “At first, the movie is so funny it gets your attention, but by the end, you just feel responsible and obligated to do something to help” (Vaughn). This reaction is typical of most audiences, and it is exactly the reaction that Invisible Children is hoping to create. However, there is a lot of criticism about Invisible Children, Inc. Many people say that the boys took a stupid risk by thinking they could just walk into the most dangerous place in the world unprepared and unprotected—they did not even do a lot of research about Sudan before they left. They simply relied on Jason Russel’s experience from his trip to Kenya, and it did not seem to occur to them, from what Rough Cut shows, anyway, that Kenya and Sudan are two very different worlds. Many critics—specifically people who have worked “on the ground” in Uganda for months or years—say that three white boys from California could never possibly hope to understand a day in the life of a northern Ugandan citizen. These critics claim that the organization was started by rich, private-school kids who just want to feel like they are making a difference in the word, and they refer to the organization as being full of hypocrites who preach about the issues all day before returning home to their soft beds and other luxuries (Steers). These criticisms are completely understandable, though it is heartbreaking that some people can be so dismissive of such an important cause. But despite these critical views, the overwhelming response is anger, empathy, and the desire to take action.

The media has a tendency to focus its attention on economically relevant issues. In his book Not For Sale, David Batstone says, “Perhaps if the rebels were stealing oil rather than children, the world would pay more attention” (135). Thanks to Jason Russell, Bobby Bailey, and Laren Poole, the world has started to pay attention. Ultimately, it is not a question of whether the films are more effective or the actions are more effective. Rough Cut was able to expose the situation, which led to more films and videos, which led to actions, which led to the social change. It is all one long chain of events; none of the steps could have happened without the ones before it, and none of the other films or actions would have occurred at all if not for Rough Cut. However, even though all of these steps have been taken as a result of Invisible Children: Rough Cut, the war in Uganda is not over. Invisible Children is still holding campaigns to raise awareness and aid; on April 25, 2011, they will hold the “25 Campaign”, in which thousands of people will go silent for twenty-five hours so that the victims of the LRA can be heard. Money raised for this campaign will fund “The Invisible Children Protection Plan” and other rehabilitation projects. Invisible Children also has plans to tackle Joseph Kony in The Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, and Sudan, where he and his troops have spread and continue to cause terror. Since Rough Cut was made, so many more people are aware of Africa’s longest-running war. As of 2009, the LRA has been charged by the International Criminal Court with eighty-six counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity (Eichstaedt 8). Kony himself has thirty-three (9). In December 2001, President George W. Bush declared the LRA a terrorist organization (Batstone 135). There is no way to know if this issue would have been brought to light without the work of these three young men, but because of their film the issue was brought to the world’s attention much sooner. So the ultimate question is, “Can a film change the world?” The answer: Yes, yes it can, and the proof can be seen in Invisible Children: Rough Cut.



Works Cited

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Eichstaedt, Peter. First Kill Your Family. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2009. Print.

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Russell, Jason, Bobby Bailey, and Laren Poole. Invisible Children: Rough Cut. 2003. Film.

Sarette, Chris, and Susannah Vila. “How a Documentary Film Led to New Legislation.”
Alliance for Youth Movements. Web. 2011. 8 Feb. 2011.

Steers, Julia. “Giving a Voice to Africa’s Child Soldiers.” The Huffington Post. Web. 22 Feb. 2011. 25 Feb. 2011.

Thomson, Mike. “Who Can Stop the LRA?” BBC. Web. 16 Feb. 2011. 27 Feb. 2011.

Vaughn, Peggy. “Opening Eyes to Uganda’s ‘Invisible Children.’” Gazette. Web. 14 Feb. 2007.
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