Two Lynchburg College students are currently traveling the country to draw attention to the abduction of children in Uganda and demand political action.
Angela Massino '11 and Carolyn Walsh '10 were selected to join a rescue bus to travel to Philadelphia and Alexandria. They are currently being "held hostage" in Baltimore, and hope to travel on to Richmond, Va., and Chicago. They can be seen in Baltimore at: http://nightof.therescue.invisiblechildren.com/cities/united-states/baltimore/
Their adventure started Saturday when they, along with 15 other LC students and staff, traveled to Washington for the third annual "Rescue Me" advocacy event. The event was organized by the non-profit organization, Invisible Children, which seeks to raise awareness and influence policy to end the abduction of children who are forced to become soldiers in northern Uganda.
The abducted children are forced to fight in Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army, a rebel group seeking to overthrow the Ugandan government. The children are subjected to such atrocities as killing their own family members and having appendages cut off for insubordination. The bloody conflict has persisted for 23 years and an estimated 30,000 children have been abducted since the beginning of the conflict.
See Angela's YouTube video asking Vice President Joe Biden to rescue Washington, D.C.: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iKcmnda9f4&feature=channel_page. Though Biden didn't show up, musician Pete Wentz did, "rescuing" the U.S. capital.
LC students were among 2,500 other people who traveled to Washington for the event, which is being held at 100 cities across the globe, with hundreds of thousands in attendance.
In Washington, the participants re-enacted an LRA abduction by tying their wrists together and walking across the National Mall toward the Capitol, where they then set up camp to spend the night on the Mall.
Throughout the night the participants listened to speakers that included celebrities and politicians. As each individual city across America was able to book prominent speakers and garner local attention, they were then deemed "rescued."
Many of the LC students who participated are members of STAND, a student-led anti-genocide organization on campus.