Kony 2012 may have been an epic failure, but the NGO Invisible Children Uganda’s biggest mistake might have been its failure to draw attention to the good work it does in northern Uganda.
Almost a year ago, Kony2012, a YouTube short aimed at raising awareness in Western youth about the past 20 years of mass atrocities in Uganda, went viral. The video brought new attention to Uganda; the warlord and defendant of the International Criminal Court Joseph Kony; and the creator of YouTube shorts, the US NGO Invisible Children. As quickly as this attention escalated from nowhere to a worldwide phenomenon, it vanished. But, before it did, academics and professionals around the world condemned the video as unconstructive, confusing, dangerous, and a publicity teaser for Invisible Children director Jason Russell.
What went unnoticed in this pandemonium in spring 2012 was the fact that while Kony 2012 could have been wrong, the NGO Invisible Children Uganda can do a good job in northern Uganda helping the conflict-affected region to recover from his years of aggression. It is also expanding its operations to the Congo with a reception center for demobilized child soldiers. IC is, at least, held in high regard by many people on the ground in Gulu.
Having heard little from Invisible Children in the past 8 months, I was surprised to see Jason Russell on the Ugandan national news earlier this month. In the days that followed, I did some informal research in northern Uganda to find that Invisible Children is generally well regarded, despite poor reception for Kony 2012. A woman who told me she came out of the local screening of the video praised the NGO for its scholarship program to help students cover high school and college tuition. Visiting IC’s headquarters and then having an after-work drink with IC’s communications officer, Bethany Williams, of the United States, I learned that the NGO has a wide range of programs aimed at helping develop and support northern Uganda in its days after the dispute.
Williams highlights the Village Savings and Loan Associations program that helps groups of 25-30 people save money and withdraw small loans from the fund to start small businesses. IC Uganda also offers functional adult literacy courses. The NGO has also partnered with other organizations to promote better sanitation and hygiene in villages in northern Uganda.
There is much need in northern Uganda that has little to do with the mobilization of Western youth to help catch Joseph Kony. Perhaps IC’s next step should be to raise awareness of the less sensational needs of a people who have suffered so much. An individual suspiciously told me a story about a child that the individual hoped would get help from IC, but was unsuccessful in his request. The narrator was not the only one who suggested that there might be some corruption in the CI adjudication process and still hold the NGO’s work in high regard. This combination of suspicion and praise is a testament to the great and continuing need of the people of northern Uganda, years after the end of the conflict, when many international NGOs packed their bags and left or are doing so, and to the general situation. . of a country where corruption is seen as commonplace and expected.
Personally, without any solid evidence to back up my feelings, I think the allegations of dishonesty at IC have more to do with disappointment on the part of hopeful applicants and expectations that corruption exists in all of Uganda’s bureaucracies than with corruption. institutional. According to IC staff, acceptance into the program is based on a combination of two things: academic performance and level of vulnerability. A person with a high level of vulnerability would be an orphan child, a household head living with HIV / AIDS, who was at one point abducted by the LRA and / or a girl who has children of her own. . The IC scholarship program is undoubtedly overwhelmed by applicants who simply desperately want to get an education to try to do something better in their lives.
However, the important message of the combination of suspicion and praise is that even in the minds of people who believe that there may be inconsistencies in NGO practices, it is also appreciated and recognized that IC is trying to meet a tremendous need in community. .
In an era of short attention spans, a major failure of the successful Kony 2012 promotional campaign was its neglect of the serious current needs of northern Uganda for the sensationalism and thus misrepresenting a very limited concern.
