Visible Ugandans Aim to Recapture Narrative from Invisible Children with Own Online Campaign
In an effort to "recapture the narrative about Joseph Kony and Northern Uganda from Invisible Children," a group of honest-to-goodness Ugandans — journalists, photographers, storytellers, and other young professionals — united to launch UgandaSpeaks: An online platform for Ugandans to tell their own stories in their own words.
If you help fund this project we will not send you a t-shirt. We will not send you a bracelet. We will not ask you to vandalize your city with the face of a mass murderer.
What we can promise you is that we will tell you the real story of Kony and the child soldiers. Plus we guarantee that 100 percent of the money pledged will go to Ugandans on the ground.
As Invisible Children prepares to execute the final phase of its KONY 2012 campaign — the global canvassing initiative they call "Cover the Night" — the controversial viral video remains a major source of contention for the people it claims to speak for: Northern Ugandans.
At a recent screening of KONY 2012 in the major northern city of Gulu attended by some 10,000 locals, at least one person was left dead and several others were injured after the crowd grew violent in response to the film.
"We expected to see Acholi in the video but only [saw] the white people, so they really exploited our suffering to make money," one attendee said.
