The No Kool Aid Zone

Jolly Okot Had a Dream

Posted by Byron April 14, 2006 at 7:33 am
Filed Under Matters of Life and Death | 2 Comments |

From the Invisible Children website:

In 2003, Jolly Okot brought the filmmakers to Northern Uganda in hopes that her dream would one day come to fruition: Thousands of Acholi children given the chance to succeed through education. She knew that if the filmmakers saw the thousands of children fleeing their homes and sleeping in the streets, they would not be able to ignore them. She was right.

Now Invisible Children Inc. is dedicated to educating the children of Uganda, as well as raising awareness on what the U.N. has deemed “the greatest emergency in the world today involving children;” And a movement began because Jolly believed that these children deserved the world’s attention. Jolly is still at the forefront of our efforts “on the ground” in Uganda, and is now responsible for advising any IC staff on culture and tradition, as well as keeping the program running in Uganda, primarily by Ugandans.

“The greatest emergency in the world today involving children”—and I bet most of my readers had never even heard of it. I hadn’t until two months ago. This is life and death for thousands of children. If they lived in Detroit, and had to walk into Grosse Pointe Woods every night to avoid being kidnapped and forced to deal drugs, we’d declare it a national emergency and move heaven and earth to fix it. This is worse. Much worse. What will we do?