KONY 2012 is the campaign slogan for Invisible Children, a controversial not-for-profit activist group that act as a voice for child soldier victims in Uganda. The organization has publicized its finances, and have faced a lot of criticism for many issues. Firstly, only 32% of their $8.6 million expenditure in 2011 went to direct services, with the rest of the money going to staff salaries, travel, and producing their million-dollar films like the one below that talk about child soldiers.
The world is filled with evil people, and people with good intentions. I have no doubt that Joseph Kony is an evil man, but I truly believe that Invisible Children is the prime example of a typical group of white people with nothing but good intentions.
First of all, the organization has unprofessionally exaggerated the scale of the child soldier problem, misleading the public to think that capturing Joseph Kony is of number one importance in Uganda. This ignores the broader social and geopolitical roots of the problem. Kony has not been active since 2006, and Invisible Children admits this. But nevertheless, Kony is a convenient villain for those who need their activism to mean something. And the idea of being an activist to rescue African children in order to save Africa is the perfect setting for the White Man's Burden.
First of all, the organization has unprofessionally exaggerated the scale of the child soldier problem, misleading the public to think that capturing Joseph Kony is of number one importance in Uganda. This ignores the broader social and geopolitical roots of the problem. Kony has not been active since 2006, and Invisible Children admits this. But nevertheless, Kony is a convenient villain for those who need their activism to mean something. And the idea of being an activist to rescue African children in order to save Africa is the perfect setting for the White Man's Burden.
Instead of trying to fix the numerous global health problems Uganda faces, such as having one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world, this organization aims to fix a problem that in my opinion, is no where near as important as these global health issues. People who support Invisible Children justify the controversy because at least they're doing something, and that's better than doing nothing. Right?
No. Something isn't always better than nothing. What you're doing when you support this organization is just making yourself feel better.
You really care about children in Africa? Give them clean water. Give them antiretroviral medications. Give them measles vaccines. That's a great place to start, because you're not going to solve the problem by making films and changing your Facebook profile picture, as hard as that is to believe.
No. Something isn't always better than nothing. What you're doing when you support this organization is just making yourself feel better.
You really care about children in Africa? Give them clean water. Give them antiretroviral medications. Give them measles vaccines. That's a great place to start, because you're not going to solve the problem by making films and changing your Facebook profile picture, as hard as that is to believe.