On the ground: Teacher Exchange comes full circle
For the last nine years, Otto Ben Kasule has been teaching at Anaka Secondary School, a school out in rural northern Uganda. Ben attended Anaka for grades S1—S4 [the equivalent of 7th—10th grade in the US] and credits the pride he felt for the school as his motivation for returning as a teacher. Since his years as a student at Anaka, Ben has spent almost a full decade passing on the same pride and respect to his students that his teachers had instilled in him.
Due to the conflict in northern Uganda, Anaka was displaced to a temporary school site in 2000. With the help of Invisible Children and other NGO’s, the school was able to return to its original site in 2008. Since then, the school appears and feels “different,” as Ben explained. Having overcome a difficult situation, everyone—teachers, students, and staff, alike—feel triumphant. “There is now a higher morale and more motivation to help the school,” he said.
On the Ground: Ugandan teacher heading to the US of A!
Ongiya Calistus Nyeko, one of the most positive, energetic teachers we work with in Uganda.
He approached me, and beaming from ear-to-ear, shook my hand and repeated, “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” After a few minutes, I finally found out what he was talking about: Calistus had just received news that he was heading to the US to participate in Invisible Children’s Reciprocal Teacher Exchange (TReX).
We recommend: America’s last frontier
Its a place we don’t think of often. Most of us have no friends or family from this place, nor have most of us been there (except Jed of course). It is hardly mentioned in the news, most likely because of how peaceful it is. This is America’s last frontier, i’m talking about Alaska. I came across this National Geographic collection of photo’s from remote areas throughout Alaska and its pure eye candy so stop anything else your doing and take a look at these photos, they deserve it. -Braden
Click here to see all of these super rad pics.
What’s the Price of Happiness? $75,000
From GOOD, quoting the Los Angeles Times: all I do is steal other people’s thoughts - Jedidiah
The freedom to pursue happiness is an inalienable human right in this country, but what does happiness actually cost to attain? According to researchers at Princeton, who surveyed 450,000 Americans between 2008 and 2009, it’s about $75,000.
From the Los Angeles Times:
The study found that people’s evaluations of their lives improved steadily with annual income. But the quality of their everyday experiences — their feelings — did not improve above an income of $75,000 a year. As income decreased from $75,000, people reported decreasing happiness and increasing sadness, as well as stress. The study found that being divorced, being sick and other painful experiences have worse effects on a poor person than on a wealthier one.
The researchers do point out that people earning $75,000 a year would not necessarily be unhappy to receive a raise.
According to the U.S. Census, median household income was $50,303 in 2008.
Barefoot Peace Walk in London
If you’re in London on September 21st, listen up: International Refugee Trust organized the Barefoot Peace Walk for the first time in 2009 to raise awareness about crimes being committed by the Lord’s Resistance Army. The LRA is still active and spreading terror in Central African Republic, DR Congo and southern Sudan… therefore they’re doing it again.
From IRT: Come and walk barefoot* through Central London
When? Meet at 6:00 pm to start walking at 6:30 pm, 21 September 2010 (UN International Day of Peace)
Where? Next to St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square
How long? 45 minute walk
And then? From 7:30 pm onwards after-event in the Africa Centre, 38 King Street, Covent Garden with guest speakers including Anneke van Woudenberg from Human Rights Watch, and Ugandan music.
It is not necessary to sign up or RSVP to the Barefoot Peace Walk, but if you happen to be of Facebook you can sign up there.
Luis Moreno-Ocampo: On power and limitation
Globalization is not new, but it has also never been seen as in its currently state, spreading like a wildfire. Luis Moreno-Ocampo is the lead prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, a friend and hero of Invisible Children, and in this video he speaks of the need for global governance to match global interaction growth. He also addresses the limitations of his power and why it’s a good thing that the US didn’t sign the Rome statute. (warning, he is from Argentina, so he speaks with a mega-gnarly accent… buckle up) – Braden
One Hello World
Consider it a “soundtrack to your thoughts.” One Hello World uses messages left by ordinary people, and transforms them into music. Some of these soundtracks are beautiful, and others are painful, but all are inspiring. I definitely recommend checking this out and if you have a story you would like to share through music, go ahead and call (316) 247-0421, every message is listened to. (Thanks Colin for showing me this awesome site.)
-Braden
Well, onehelloworld,
you’re not on Earth anymore.
This is the Tumblrverse,
where anything is possible.
You can say anything
and not worry about
what people will think.
You can be beautiful
in your own time
on your own terms
and never fear once.
We’re so glad you’re here.
5 hours left to vote & raise money for IC’s Teacher Exchange Program!
Today is the final day to vote in the Kohl’s $10,000,000 Facebook Giveaway for Education.
The top 20 schools to receive the most votes across the U.S. will each win $500,000 tonight at midnight CST.
A great K-8 school focused on global studies and leadership, the Chabad Hebrew Academy, located near Invisible Children’s headquarters in San Diego, CA, is in the top 20 and hopes to provide a self-sustainable Aquaponics Greenhouse and continuous educational training to a school within our Teacher Exchange Program. You can make it happen! Vote 5 times today on Facebook. Either by visiting www.votemyschool.com for a step-by-step guide or if you are already logged on to Facebook visit www.votecha.com for the direct link.
Vote five times for Chabad Hebrew Academy in San Diego and together, we can make this happen.
Want to be more appealing? find meaning
It’s a pretty simple concept, if you understand yourself and have found meaning in your life, you come off as more attractive and appealing. At least that is what the new study from the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science shows us.
People seek interpersonal connections with those who have found meaning in life. So if you are searching for meaning in your own life, whether you know it or it is subconscious, odds are you will be attracted to those who have already found it.
Testing showed that having meaning in your life had higher levels of social magnetism than happiness, religiosity, and extraversion.
The point to be taken from this study is this: If you’re breaking a sweat attending law school or working at that financial management firm for the purpose of making money and thinking it will bring you the interpersonal social status you desire, you may want to reevaluate those thoughts, because chances are you have overlooked the social power of having a deeper purpose.
Of course, the hard part is actually finding that meaning in your life if you haven’t already. But don’t stop, it will come, and with it will be the interpersonal appeal. - Braden
No peace for peacekeepers to keep
In recent months, Congo has gained immense media attention for the events unfolding within its borders. The massive rapes, the LRA, Rwandan rebels, and the U.N. Peacekeepers who were brutally butchered, and still the Congolese government is removing the U.N. Peacekeeping mission from Congo. But then again, with no peace to keep, there presence in the country may be without a point, since no progress seems to coming out of the mission.
This timeline by Strategy Page lays out a chronological listing of the events of this past month in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
-Braden
September 2, 2010: UN investigators have accused a group of rebels of gang rape. Members of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) committed the crime in late July in a small village in North Kivu province (eastern Congo). At least 200 FDLR rebels participated in a series of night-long assaults on women in the village. The same group is suspected of attacking and plundering other villages in the area. An investigator with a non-governmental organization operating in the province called it a systematic rape of the population. Gang rape is, unfortunately, common in the eastern Congo. Congolese Army forces and some UN peacekeepers serving in eastern Congo have also been accused of rape.
August 21, 2010: The government demanded earlier this year that UN peacekeepers prepare to withdraw the peacekeeping force by sometime next year. In June the UN withdrew about 1,700 troops. Right now about 20,000 peacekeepers serve with UN Organization and Stabilization Mission (MONUSCO). The government, however, wants the UN to keep it supplied with aid money for humanitarian and relief work. This year the UN budgeted over $800 million for relief work in the Congo. A recent UN report, however, said that so far donors have only supplied $400 million. The global recession may be one reason, but aid organizations say the instability in the eastern Congo makes relief operations necessary but also very risky (more…)
Katrina, five years and spray paint later
It hardly feels like its been five years since that devastating storm ripped through the gulf coast. I remember being a freshman in high school, coming home and turning on the TV to see boats traveling what used to be streets, helicopter rescues from rooftops, and of course the Superdome where thousands took refuge. Now, five years later, there is no water engulfing New Orleans, the looting has stopped, and new levees have been erected. But the scars of what happened are visible nearly everywhere you go. GOOD compiled a picture slide show of graffiti throughout the city, expressing and reminding us of the feelings felt by New Orleanians during and after the hurricane. -Braden
On the ground: meet Alice, a Ugandan teacher heading to the US
Apiyo Alice is a modern-day Julia Stiles, an Erin Brockovich of sorts. You know, that heroine who defies the odds while standing up for what she believes in. Undeniably, Alice’s focus on her career and education has guided her through life, bringing about opportunities ranging from extensive travel through east Africa to starting to write a book.
Alice will go to the US this winter through the Reciprocal Teacher Exchange (TReX), an initiative under IC’s Teacher Exchange (TeX). (more…)
This McDonald’s hamburger is 12 years old…
First: A 12-year-old McDonald’s hamburger, a comparative mold test with burgers and fries from a local diner and McDonald’s, and a McDonald’s hamburger after 137 days.
Next: What is food? I know, it seems like a ridiculous question. But think about it: what characteristics does something need to have before we’re able to use the word ‘food’ to describe it?
Are Gummy Bears food? What about carrots? Most people would agree that Gummy Bears are not ‘food’, but carrots are. What about genetically modified carrots? Or those funny square watermelons I saw in Japan that are designed to fit perfectly into boxes?
Language is alive, ever evolving. Maybe it’s time we come up with a new word or phrase to describe food that has strayed from its food roots? Food-ish? Food-like substance? Semi-food?
–Andrew
Child soldiers on their way home
This morning, The Sudan People’s Liberation Army informed the world that they have released almost 200,000 children from their army. Not only are they sending these children home, but they will now be providing them with an education, as they have come to understand that these children are the ones who will control the future of Sudan. By the end of this year, no more children will serve in the SPLA. This reminds us that when enough international pressure and attention is directed towards an issue, it is possible for corruption to change its direction. -Braden
From SOS Children’s Villages:
Sep 01, 2010 01:40 PM
The Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) has promised to demobilise all its child soldiers by the year end.
According to the UN children’s agency, there were more than 200,000 children in the SPLA ranks, but these numbers have reduced to around 900 today. The SPLA chief of staff has pledged that any remaining children will now be schooled and supported, stating “our future lies with the children”.
A peace agreement in 2005 ended decades of civil war between North and South Sudan. Five years on and South Sudan is to hold a referendum on independence in January. It hopes to become Africa’s first new country in almost twenty years.
The long civil war left much destruction, but there is a new atmosphere of hope. The southerners, who mostly belong to Christian or other religions compared to the largely Muslim and Arab population of the North, are hoping that all will go peacefully with the vote. 2 million people returned to South Sudan after the end of the war and another 1.5 million are expected to repatriate ahead of the referendum. Some 12,200 southerners are currently living in Egypt and the government hopes to encourage them home on trains and buses and boats down the River Nile.
Other groups occupy refugee camps in neighbouring African countries. One such camp lies in Kenya, where thousands of Sudanese remain. Recently, one of the most famous and successful of Sudan’s many exiles went to visit this camp. Given a British passport, Luol Deng came to Britain with his family and then went on to become a multi-millionaire in the United States playing basketball for the Chicago Bulls. The BBC followed Luol as he came back to help the British basketball team for the Olympics. In a moving statement Luol said “England has just done so much for me and my family….[but] England has everything. The only way I can give back is through basketball.”
Meeting his fellow Sudanese in the Kenyan camp, Luol was able to bestow something much more important as a symbol of success and hope for the future. From Kenya, Luol then journeyed over the border to Juba in southern Sudan, where he has founded schools. Addressing the children at one of his schools, Luol told them “every one of you guys is capable of being somebody special. Maybe you’ll be the president of this country and one day you’ll lead us. And we’re going to have a great country.”
South Sudan still has a long way to go in overcoming all its troubles. There are still extreme tensions with the north and the country is also facing increased attacks from the Lord’s Resistance Army, who have crossed the border from the Democratic Republic of Congo to take harvests from villagers, forcing over 25,000 people to flee their homes. But despite all the many hurdles faced by this troubled region, the southern Sudanese seem determined to build a better country for their children.
Video: The Power of Music
This 2 minute video reminds me of the power of story telling. The places it can take you in only moments. I’m also including a video I saw a while back, I think I’ve even blogged it before, but it has the same effect. Watch both if you haven’t seen them. – Jedidiah
The Power of Music from Life File Videos on Vimeo.
Wait For Me (3 Minute Documentary) from Red Light Films on Vimeo.
TIME: LRA is a guerrilla movement that won’t die
From TIME:
By ALAN BOSWELL / NZARA, SOUTH SUDAN
The night began like any other. Sarah John was busy preparing the evening fire at her village, when suddenly, seven armed men appeared from among the shadows. “They were dirty and smelly, had ragged clothes and hair unlike any normal human being,” she says now, three weeks after the incident. The uninivited visitors began ransacking her place, destroying whatever they could not carry away. When the intruder assigned to guard her stepped away to relieve himself, she escaped.
Her story may sound like the stock opening to a bad western movie — but this version is horribly true, and no cowboy arrives to save the day. The camp for displaced people that the elderly woman now calls home, in Southern Sudan’s Western Equatoria state, is swarming with survivors of recent attacks by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a guerrilla movement that arose in Uganda in the late 1980s under mystic warlord Joseph Kony. Kony’s guerrillas thrive in what this area has best — a rich, magical soil, in which almost anything grows, and grows tall. Wandering amid the dense grass and makeshift huts here are displaced fathers now without sons, daughters with lost grandmothers. Their lives have been turned upside down, and to make matters worse, most cannot even explain why: their attackers speak a foreign tongue, fighting a war outside their control, and they are pursued chiefly by an Ugandan — not a Sudanese — army. The confusion of the South Sudanese is not unique, and it’s certainly not new — the LRA has spent more than two decades baffling a world shocked by its brutality. But since the end of 2008, when the LRA dispersed from its forested Congolese base after a failed U.S.-backed Ugandan military strike, the rebels have begun a new chapter few pretend to fully understand.
On the ground: meet Grace, a Ugandan teacher heading to the US
Amono Grace is well-mannered, professional, and confident. Her English is impeccable. She is deliberate with her words, and because she’s personable, chatting with her is easy. Grace is the ideal candidate for the Reciprocal Teacher Exchange (TReX), an initiative that sends Ugandan teachers to the U.S. to team teach for one month.
Grace’s interest in cross-cultural teacher exchange dates back to 2007, when she taught alongside a U.S. teacher who came to Uganda through Invisible Children’s Teacher Exchange (TeX). Even three years later, she recalls how impressed she was by the young American teachers she met—teachers eager to learn about the people, culture, food, and education system of northern Uganda. “What they were doing was commendable,” she added. That exposure and long-lasting impression stirred Grace’s desire to participate in the TReX.
Typically confident, Grace admits she was nervous following her TReX interview. “I was hopeful, but trying to be realistic,” she explained.
It wasn’t until a week later that James, S4S’ Program Manager, rang Grace and prompted the long-awaited phone call. “Why do you think I’m calling?” he began. Grace was shocked to hear the good news. She, alongside five other Ugandan teachers, will head to the U.S. at the end of 2010.
You just got balloooooned son…
Here at the Invisible Children office, we have our own definition of the word ‘ballooned’:
Ballooned [ buh'looned ]. verb. 1. To have a balloon (preferably a party or animal shaped balloon) unknowingly attached to you, and for it to remain so attached for as long as possible, with the ballooned individual’s level of embarrassment and shame directly proportional to the length of time the balloon is attached.
There were a few birthday balloons just hanging around the office for a good while, and rather than throw them away, Kevin and Jesse decided to use them to quietly mock and humiliate their coworkers… so came the birth of the igotballooned blog.
Please visit it and enjoy. Attached below are a few of our faves.
By the way, thanks to Kevin, IGotBallooned now has an official balloon endorsement, no biggy. -Braden
Creative extremists are we
“The question is not if we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.”
— Martin Luther King Jr.
I am somewhat of a wide-eyed individual. I am startled by many things and easily made to gasp. It isn’t so much that I’m easily impressed as I am easily fascinated. But I feel the need to say something about the people I work with. They may be the eighth wonder. The long hours. The big ideas. The sacrifice of these roadies and interns… though, as one roadie told me, ‘it is no sacrifice to exchange what is acceptable, expected, and planned for what is best: the living pursuit of a better world’.
My parents spent a while asking me when my ’season’ at Invisible Children would end. They don’t ask me that any more. The foundation in my voice when I say I am living my strengths, waking up with resolve, and working with people that I respect, even more, want to be… it is impossible to argue with that. My parents have realized that they couldn’t wish a better place for a child than that which makes them fully alive.
It is human nature to want to work hard, contribute to something important, and live deliberately. And to the degree that we forget this, or exchange it for comfort and safety, is the degree to which we live with a swelling bitter discontent that will one day manifest itself in broken relationships and lonely spirits. I, in my twenties, have been so lucky to learn this. Not so much my revelation as it is a muse that visited me in the form of IC. I commit to never forgetting it, and doing my part to keep those around me awake to it as well. That promise involves pursuing my talents and delighting in the talents of others, discovering the synergy between them that will produce that dangerously bankrupt word: change. But positive change. Change that looks like education, policy, peace, friendship, global community, art, and story telling.
“Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.” - MLK Jr.
I am proud to be maladjusted to the workings of this world. As evidenced by this post, I’m feeling sentimental and reflective today, so… cheers to the pursuit of something different. I lift my glass up to the 90 people on the 3rd and 4th floors of this office in San Diego (and all our maladjusted comrads in Uganda, and beyond). – Jedidiah
Chris Anderson of TED tells us whats really going on…
Two things you need to know. 1) Know what TED is. I first heard of it from Invisible Children and now watch TED talks religiously. 2) Pakistan is struggling with floods that have left over 20 million people homeless. Pretend everyone in New York and London just lost everything and started roaming the streets hopelessly, thats the scale of the humanitarian crisis we are looking at. Unfortunately, so many people have no idea thats this is going on.
So Chris Anderson of TED has created this super cool blog to solve the problem and make it easy to know whats going on. Over the next two weeks, Chris will be blogging the reality of the floods and news coming out of Pakistan. So follow it and keep yourself informed. Also, if you haven’t been to TED’s website you best check it out, you can thank me later. - Braden
On the ground: MEND + ModCloth
I tried to think of a word that could sum up what’s going to happen to MEND in the coming year. Metamorphosis? One thing morphing into something else, something totally different—no, that won’t work. Maturation? Makes me think of Boyz II Men—nope. Transformation? Hints at awesome change, but without the whole shedding-of-old-self quality that ‘metamorphosis’ carries. Hmmm.
Ok, done: In the coming year, MEND will undergo a transformation. Details will follow once we sort out a few things, but know that MEND is growing, transforming. Did anyone catch the ModCloth blog post the other day? ModCloth is now selling MEND bags through their site. We’re psyched. More of these types of partnerships—alternative avenues for merchandising—are what MEND is shooting for in the coming year. And then there’s the Awesome Top Secret MEND Development In Uganda Thing that we’re dying to tell folks about :) Keep your eyes peeled in the coming months for more updates on MEND’s transformation.
–Andrew
The Wilderness Downtown
Very cool: Arcade Fire and Chris Milk present this interactive film. You’ve probably never seen Google Earth used like this. Plug in your home address, headphones, and listen and watch and get lost… (warning, the video will pop up a bunch of windows, so let it happen, stop freaking out)
The video features “We Used To Wait”
Check it: The Wilderness Downtown
(thanks to Pablo for showin’ me this one) – Jedidiah
The Enough Moment
Human rights activist John Prendergast and Oscar-nominated actor Don Cheadle bring us an empowering and hopeful new book, The Enough Moment, as they reveal the steps being taken by engaged citizens—”Upstanders”—famous and unknown, here and abroad, to combat genocide, rape, and child soldierdom in Africa. This event is presented in partnership with The Enough Project.
This is a free ticketed event and open to the public. RSVPs required. RSVP here.
322 South Lucas Avenue 90017
Los Angeles, CA
Online registration will be closed Wednesday, September 8 at noon. If you would like to RSVP after that time, please call 213-202-2811 ex. 23.
The Miguel Contreras Learning Complex is easily reached by taking any major freeway to the Harbor Freeway (110), proceeding to the downtown Los Angeles area, and exiting at the 3rd Street off-ramp. Proceed west on 3rd Street a few short blocks to Lucas Avenue. Parking in the Miguel Contreras Learning Complex lot is limited. Please check your e-mail for further information on places to park after you RSVP and receive your ticket(s) electronically.
Presented by the Enough Project, Facing History and Ourselves, and the Allstate Foundation
New York Times: Whats going on with 20-somethings?
It’s not uncommon to see young people in their 20’s moving back in with their parents after graduating college, in fact, its becoming quite the norm. Young adults all over the country are evolving from the old fashion way of going to school, getting a job, and starting a family. Nowadays it is much more common to see young adults staying in school just to stay in school, dedicating themselves to temporary unpaid internships, or traveling. So why is this, and is it a problem or is it just the result of a more creative youth experimenting with new ways to go about their future?
Here are some statistics to solidify the point:
- One-third of people in their 20s move to a new residence every year.
- Forty percent move back home with their parents at least once.
- They go through an average of seven jobs in their 20s.
- Two-thirds spend at least some time living with a romantic partner without being married.
Young people no longer expect to get married in their early 20’s, but closer to 30. Early 30’s is time when starting a family is now expected. This is causing young adults to delay planning of their future and careers, so if the unexpected happens forcing them into adult situations, they are not ready. Parents have also changed, no more getting the boot when your 18, in fact most parents now encourage their kids to stay as long as they need to save money or finish school.
The 20’s are the years where much of our personal development takes place. We get our college education during these years, and most of us find a career that will last for some time. This is the time where most meet their spouses and the friends that will be their until the end. The 20’s really make you who you are and set you up for the rest of your life.
This NY times article goes into detail on “emerging adults” and the case for their lack of traditional development. -Braden