Coffee to the Rescue!

From April 22nd – 29th, Coffee Ambassadors, a Chicago-based direct trade coffee company, will be featuring Ugandan family-farm coffee bean from the Bugisu region near the slopes of Mount Elgon.  From that week of onilne sales of the Ugandan be, they will be donating 100% of the profits to Invisible Children. Please visit their website, order some coffee to keep you awake as you are staying up traveling from cit-to-city across the country for The Rescue. Make sure to click on the “Ugandan Coffee” link.

If you are attending the Chicago event keep your eyes open for them and pick up a free cup of coffee or cocoa.

The RESCUE: things you need to know

With the RESCUE only 6 days away. 6 days until this massively historical event gets underway. We are working tirelessly to get everything ready for April 25th. Some of you may be confused as to what needs to be done, so we just wanted to clear some things up for you. You are what propels this movement, you are a huge part of making this work, we want you to feel empowered about the RESCUE and how much your involvement means. 

First of all- make sure you sign up at therescue.invisiblechildren.com

Next- find out what moguls your city needs to be rescued- and start contacting them. make a youtube video, call their publicist, and make sure to call the media as well. 

Then- get prepared for the RESCUE, rally your friends, pack all your necessities- download the rescue plan, it’ll tell you all you need to know.

And Finally- clear your schedule for the next little while. Yes. Once your city is rescued by a mogul, you pack your bags and head to the next unrescued cities. Some busses will be provided (those will be announced soon) the rest of you, drive, cab, walk, hitchhike (okay, maybe don’t hitchhike) do whatever it takes to help your fellow abductees in the next town over as they wait to be rescued. After that- keep going. This is an internationally, mobilized movement. We are a movement- so we’re moving. Moving, and congregating together until every. one. of. us. is. rescued. No one leaves until we all leave. 

Now, those of you with jobs, school, a doctor’s note (kidding) or some other reason that you cannot join us on the adventure of a lifetime- you still have a job. You’ll be at home, calling the media, calling the moguls, helping your adbucted friends.

We’re so pumped! Thanks for being apart of this, it’s going to be huge.

Nashville4Africa!

Nashville4Africa is a very cool benefit show to raise money for African education programs and to help build two new schools in Uganda and Sudan. Country music star Big Kenny and his wife Christiev helped build a school in Sudan in 2007 and portions of the proceeds from this event will help to supply that school with textbooks and other needed items. Keith Urban, Faith Hill, Dierks Bentley and Big Kenny are headlining along with The African Children’s Choir is made up of 26 young, beautiful children from Uganda and Kenya who have been orphaned by war or disease. They are world renown for their beautiful voices.  

Other performers include Damien Horne, Brad Arnold, Ashley Cleveland, The SteelDrivers, Michael Rhodes and Brandon Young!

 It’s at The Schermerhorn Symphony Center on APRIL 22^nd starting at 7pm. Visit www.Nashville4Africa.com for tickets or go to the Nashville Symphony box office. Invisible Children will be there, so come say hey!

Benna’s Story

Above: Benna hard at work.

Invisible Children’s Bracelet Campaign (ICBC) has seen many success stories. After the inception of the Savings and Investment Training Initiative (SITI) curriculum, beneficiaries from all walks of life have learned to save wages from bracelet making, set up their own businesses, and become self-sufficient.

But one beneficiary in particular paved a special path, even before the introduction of SITI.

In late 2005, Lanyero Benna was a resident of Koro village when IC was starting its bracelet-making site in the area. As IC was still laying the groundwork for what would become the NGO we are today, it was mostly international staff scouting out the area. In need of a translator, they were referred to a young girl from the village who could speak English – Benna.  From there, the rest was history.

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MEND Trends

Above:  One MEND seamstress shows off a bag she designed and sewed herself, a bag design she hopes to sell in Gulu

When I first visited the MEND tailoring center in Uganda in early March, Richard, the site manager, excitedly told me about how a few women had started making their own handbags.  With the skills they had learned through MEND, one of IC’s economic initiatives, seamstresses started making bags of their own designs, bags they sold in the local market.  Aida, the Communications Intern, and I recently visited the MEND seamstresses to find out the scoop on how their handbags were coming along.

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The RESCUE: 11 days.

11 days until the Rescue! It’s so encouraging to see how much this movement has grown over the past few weeks. We’re honored to be apart of this with you. Some exciting news- a lot of our supporters have rallied around the Rescue, and we have invited them to be Rescuers for their cities. They are the culture-changers, the celebrities, the musicians, all using their voice to inspire change, to get the world to listen. The list continues to grow daily, but we’re delighted to annouce who is on board so far:

Switchfoot will be in KS

Fall Out Boy in DC

Aaron Gillespie (Underoath/The Almost) in Orlando

Kirsten Dunst/Kristen Bell in LA

Kevin Devine in NYC

Jonas Brothers: this one’s for you- check this out, our friends in Switchfoot made this video inviting the Jonas Brothers to the RESCUE!

Oh and Paramore? Or friend Aaron Gillespie wants you to come to the RESCUE.

More to come. If you haven’t already: sign up for the RESCUE athttp://therescue.invisiblechildren.com

Band Tour on La Blogotheque!

On of our favorite music sites, La Blogotheque recently filmed a Take Away Show for our friends Delta Spirit. Check out the videos, and see if you can spot our band tour team- Alex, Leigh and Kenny! Delta Spirit just took us out on the road and made a stop in San Francisco to play an impromptu set on a San Fran streetcar to the tune of ‘Trashcan‘. Consider this the soundtrack to get you psyched for the RESCUE! 15 days, people!

THE RESCUE in UGANDA

Last week, Laren and Jason flew to Gulu, Uganda to be apart of The Rescue in northern Uganda. It was a powerful experience, documented by Erica D’Alessandro, Public Relations Officer in Uganda:

The gathering of university students, already pouring out the doors, continued to grow as many were forced to catch glimpses through the cracked glass windowpanes, shielding their eyes against the harsh sun on typical dry-season afternoon in Gulu.

Four influential community leaders sat onstage in the airy main hall of Gulu University, while the packed audience listened attentively to each member of the debate’s arguments and protestations against opposing opinions. Some governmental leaders supported peace; others supported military intervention. A former LRA delegate to the Peace Talks spoke with wisdom and experience. All sides presented, the intellectual debate was an interactive medium for the youth to respond to the positions of their local leaders on the solution to the conflict that has affected everyone—young and old—in northern Uganda. The discussion served as a starting point to the weekend’s events—and this was just the beginning to THE RESCUE EVENT in Gulu.

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THE RESCUE in UGANDA

Last week, Laren and Jason flew to Gulu, Uganda to be apart of The Rescue in northern Uganda. It was a powerful experience, documented by Erica D’Alessandro, Public Relations Officer in Uganda:

The gathering of university students, already pouring out the doors, continued to grow as many were forced to catch glimpses through the cracked glass windowpanes, shielding their eyes against the harsh sun on typical dry-season afternoon in Gulu.

Four influential community leaders sat onstage in the airy main hall of Gulu University, while the packed audience listened attentively to each member of the debate’s arguments and protestations against opposing opinions. Some governmental leaders supported peace; others supported military intervention. A former LRA delegate to the Peace Talks spoke with wisdom and experience. All sides presented, the intellectual debate was an interactive medium for the youth to respond to the positions of their local leaders on the solution to the conflict that has affected everyone—young and old—in northern Uganda. The discussion served as a starting point to the weekend’s events—and this was just the beginning to THE RESCUE EVENT in Gulu.

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Facebook Gift for our Cotton Initiative!

The Cotton Initiative–

Together with EDUN LIVE, www.edun-live.com, Invisible Children is launching a new initiative to contribute to the economic development and resettlement of northern Uganda through the expansion of its organic agriculture sub-sector and in turn provide a financially viable farming alternative to people living in IDP camps dependent upon international donor support.  The mission of this initiative is the coordination and management of a sustainable organic cotton and rotational crop supply chain designed to support conservation, humanitarian and economic capacity building in northern Uganda. We aim to bring value addition to farmers and the textile industry in Uganda through consideration of ways & means for enhancing weak links in the chain through technology transfer, training, education and the introduction of improved cultivation, harvesting, classing systems and manufacturing of finished products. 

Buy your gift shirt here,www.facebook.com/giftshop, to help us launch this new and exciting opportunity for people in northern Uganda and redeem your store credit at www.edun-live.com/ic.