KONY 2012
“[I think that] some of the critiques of the movement as a kind of ‘slacktivism,’ or too-easy-to-be-true activism, are fairly well founded. Changing the world is complicated, difficult stuff,” English Teacher Ellen Dahlke said.
Young boys are forced to be a part of Kony’s rebel army, which fights with no political agenda but rather a desire for power. Kony also forces the girls into sexual slavery.
“It was time for something radically different and the Kony2012 campaign is trying something. I respect that,” History Teacher Jeffery Davis said.
The video, which launched the Kony 2012 movement into the public eye, had almost 75 million views on March 12, 2012.
“We watched [the Kony 2012 video] in one of my World Studies English classes because during the course of our discussion about who or what counts as heroic, one of our Essential Questions for the hero unit, a student suggested that we take a look at this video. We ended up having a really critical dialogue around whether or not we thought the actions of the videos creators were heroic,” Dahlke said.
According to kony2012.com, over 1000 people have been killed and over 2200 people have been abducted since 2009 due to Kony’s actions. Although many people have associated Kony with Uganda; he has not be active in Uganda since 2006, instead he has been active in other places such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic and South Sudan.
“I felt that the comparison between the Kony campaign and our recent Gandhi coverage was a good opportunity to test my students’ deeper understanding of Gandhi’s philosophy and strategies,” Davis said.
For almost current updates on Kony’s movement and actions, the people behind the movement teamed up withlracrisistracker.com to create an LRA Crisis Tracker.
“[The Kony 2012 movement] reflects the modern problems the world is dealing with and modern tactics, albeit based on historic strategies, that will be required to deal with those problems,” Davis said.
To support the Kony 2012 cause people can buy a Kony bracelet or download Kony 2012 posters free fromkony2012.com and put them everywhere. Many Kony 2012 supports will be putting up posters April 20, the day which has been designated “Cover the Night.” Kony 2012 supporters plan to plaster posters on every surface the night of April 20 to spread the word about Kony and his crimes.
“It seems to me that much of the criticism of the campaign has been misplaced. This is not a typical charity where money is expected to end up on the ground in Africa, buying food and supplies. The point was to try and generate publicity for a cause that the world has shown little interest in resolving for over twenty years. That takes thinking about the problem in a new way, outside the box so to speak,” Davis said.
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I think its really awesome how this is getting so much attention. Things like this are serious issues in africa and need to be addressed so that people in america and other countries can realize what is going on and help the people in need. Also the amount off attention teens are giving it shows that teens are rally worried about what is going on in the world and want to help.
The Kony 2012 is a great cause. it is good that it has so much publicity.
I think this whole thing is a smoke screen to the actual big picture of humanity. We can do anything if we are inspired to do it together
Im 100% supportive of this its awesome that one YouTube video opened everyone’s eyes.
I have always wondered where the money went when a donation to Africa. It’s great That’s so much attention is on this issue. I wanna know where the money is going. Also Maybe this attention will help get some thing done and fast!
This is terrible and has been going on for many years. How come this is now coming out to publicity?
I’m 100% supportive of Kony 2012. Watching the video made me realize what exactly was going on and how horrible it all is. I’m glad an article was done on it, it shows that UHS students really are interested in what’s going on.