Cal State Long Beach is hosting a film screening of “Invisible Children: Rough Cut” tonight at 7 p.m. in Liberal Arts building 4-Room 108.
CSULB student Kaitlyn Nelson and co-president of the CSULB Invisible Children Club Charlee Vickers will have a presentation about the current situation in Uganda and what can be done to help. The club raises money for Invisible Children Inc. a non-profit organization to spread awareness about the current situation in Uganda, in order to help the organization build schools and fund its political activism.
According to Nelson, lobbying is taking place for President Barack Obama to put out a warrant for the arrest of Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a campaign to turn Uganda into a Christian nation.
Invisible Children founders Jason Russell, Bobby Bailey and Laren Poole traveled to Africa in 2003 to film a documentary about children who were abducted and forced to fight in the LRA. The film captures the adversity of these children and the struggles they encounter while fighting the Ugandan government. Those not captured were constantly on the move to avoid being forced into the LRA. The film also featured three of the filmmakers interacting with the children and officials.
However, the group encountered obstacles along the way. Though not mentioned in the documentary, all three founders acquired malaria during their visit, according to Success Magazine. They also faced the danger of being captured or killed if the rebel army were to find out they were in contact with the children.
The original screening took place in 2004 at the University of San Diego: Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice. Since then, more than 5,000 screenings have been shown in high schools, colleges, churches and other venues.
Russell, who earned a degree in cinema production, and Bailey, a cinema-television degree, both graduated from the University of Southern California. Poole graduated from UC San Diego with a degree in structural engineering and was the recipient of the UC Irvine Human Security Award in 2008, according to the Invisible Children website.
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