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Author Topic: Make Kony Famous

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Offline Annie

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Make Kony Famous
« on: March 07, 2012, 12:37:17 PM »
Not sure if this belongs here in this topic but Jack, if you caoul get it on the homepage that would be awesome.

If you have not seen this already, I STROGNLY recommend you do watch it and play our part in changing the world and bring the most corrupt people in the world to justice:

 
KONY 2012


(Not sure how to embed it...sorry)

This video has gone viral throughout the whole world and is trending on Twitter. Let's get involved people!!!
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Offline CYW.com

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Re: Make Kony Famous
« Reply #1 on: March 07, 2012, 01:27:04 PM »
Funnily enough this is already posted in an article which is queued to publish at some point tomorrow, I think ;D
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Online jmspotter

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Re: Make Kony Famous
« Reply #2 on: March 08, 2012, 08:29:15 AM »
Right,
This is going to explode in school today, I have already had 3 boys seek me out before school to see if they can do an assembly on Kony. I have heard some rather negative things, and want to do some more investigation. What do others think?

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Offline gems_sparkle

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Re: Make Kony Famous
« Reply #3 on: March 08, 2012, 09:05:33 AM »
I woke up yesterday to about 10 friends having posted this video. Something made me feel uncomfortable. I watched about half the video before my internet cut out and as I was ill in bed I still haven't watched the rest. Then 2 friends invited me to an event and this made me feel even more uncomfortable but on the event comments there were some links to an article about invisible children - I didn't like what I read!

Over the day some other friends were finding things and posting them to say that maybe we should hold on a moment before blindly entering this campaign. Here are links to the articles:

http://visiblechildren.tumblr.com/

http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/03/07/stop-kony-yes-but-dont-stop-asking-questions/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/invisible-childrens-stop-kony-campaign/2012/03/07/gIQA7B31wR_blog.html

http://justiceinconflict.org/2012/03/07/taking-kony-2012-down-a-notch/

Personally I advocate getting involved in charities - giving time, effort and money for a good cause but I'm not sure that this campaign is where I would put my time. Invisible Children support a military response to the LRA (who aren't even in Uganda anymore) and spend most of their money on travel and advertising rather than actually helping people. A lot of their information is out of date and I can't help but think that this campaign holds the same mentality that saw the rejoicing when Osama Bin Laden was killed. Capturing or killing one man does not solve the issue - why does Invisible Children not talk about the charities that are already doing good work in Uganda rehabilitating child soldiers and helping the people get the country back on track?

Yes, people need to know about the issues. Yes, people need to stand up and take action. Yes, it's impressive that a campaign like this can go viral so quickly but are people simply getting caught up in the movement before thinking whether it's moving in the right direction!?!?!?
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Online jmspotter

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Re: Make Kony Famous
« Reply #4 on: March 08, 2012, 09:42:51 AM »
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Offline gems_sparkle

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Re: Make Kony Famous
« Reply #5 on: March 08, 2012, 09:53:55 AM »
But I've also jsut read this:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.invisiblechildren.com/critiques.html

Which is a very interesting response from Invisible Children. I don't think it completely answers my concerns. Why should we 'make Kony famous'? Just because we know who he is doesn't meant the government are going to do anything and if the american government are going to 'send 'advisors' and 'support' it could just turn into another Iraq or Afghanistan.
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Offline gems_sparkle

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Re: Make Kony Famous
« Reply #6 on: March 08, 2012, 09:59:33 AM »
My view is, if we can't be sure - stay well clear!
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Online juggler

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Re: Make Kony Famous
« Reply #7 on: March 08, 2012, 10:01:16 AM »
It inspired a lot of people to want to make a difference and think about what they can do to help. Which if nothing else is a good starting point for development education. So rather than deciding whether it is good or bad - which I got caught up in a little yesterday - perhaps using the passion it has engendered to encourage critical thinking about issues and how we might support them is a way forward?
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Offline Jack Regan

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Re: Make Kony Famous
« Reply #8 on: March 08, 2012, 10:25:31 AM »
Hi all. A few very brief thoughts from me...

I don't know anything about the case against Invisible Children, and I don't have time to get in to it today, but:

It strikes me that a lot of charities are criticised for how they send their money and allocate their resources. While these criticisms may be justified, they don't necessarily devalue the main focus of their campaign. If they are trying to raise awareness rather than ask for donations, then there's not much of a headache for us really.

The issue of backing military intervention isn't an issue for me personally. I'm no warmonger. I didn't agree with Iraq, Vietnam and many other wars and I think that a great deal more wars had serious deficiencies in how they were fought, like Afghanistan for one. Sometimes though - rarely - when al other options have been exhausted, I think that Military action can be a very last resort. Hitler wouldn't have stopped if we hadn't turned up with Guns to stop him, and a million people died in Rwanda because nobody did turn up with guns to stop them. Ditto Srebrenica.

However, I think that the criteria with with the western world choses its wars at present is just awful. We started the Gulf War in 1991 because of oil. That's it. And we started the Iraq war in 2003 over nothing more than American egos. I spent most of the 1990s just unable to believe that we went into Iraq, but left people to be slaughtered in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda. We had a little swansong in Kosovo, but by that time it was too little, too late!

Having said that though, if (and it's a big 'if') the allegations of backing seriously dodgy military groups in Africa are correct, then IC should be avoided like the plague. Perhaps there is an argument which says that if the US/ NATO/ UN aren't prepared to show their teeth, then somebody has to, but funding dodgy militia is just a seriously bad idea!


My suggestion would be that until these things are cleared up we use the video to raise awareness and don't donate. If YP want to do something, why not encourage them to write to the government/ the UN etc...?

I'll say again though that these are brief thoughts on an issue I don't really understand.
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Offline divachaplain

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Re: Make Kony Famous
« Reply #9 on: March 21, 2012, 10:13:55 AM »
I agree with a lot of what has been said. My main thoughts are that I have not encouraged girls to throw money at this and have warned them against donating to charities when we dont know how the money is being spent etc.
Raising awareness is an amazing thing and I thank the organisation for this but I have also warned the girls to be careful not to judge without knowing as many facts as possible.
And thirdly I have used the kony stuff to introduce a theme about making a difference and our responsibilites to take action when we see injustice. This dude in America who made the video that I saw is more or less nameless, but he has made a huge difference and reached out to people all over the world!! How empowering is that???!!! I brought out the points that with social networking etc look how easy it is to make a difference. Am also working with a year group to find a cause that they believe in and do something similar.
I think it is important to not just ignore this, but to do some good with it. And that does NOT nec mean just blindly following!
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