Approximately 25 Tufts students attended a film screening and discussion of the documentary "Invisible Children" last night in Pearson Hall.
The film, recorded in 2003, sheds light on the current situation in Uganda, where the insurgent terrorist group the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has wreaked havoc, throwing the northern region of the country into war and making extensive use of child soldiers.
Julie Dobrow, program director of the communications and media studies department, helped bring the screening to Tufts for the second consecutive year.
Four national representatives of the organization that bears the same name as the documentary were present for the film.
After a short introduction from Dobrow, the screening began. The film documents the experiences of three college students, Laren Poole, Jason Russell and Bobby Bailey, as they travel through Africa beginning in March 2003 looking to "find truth" about the continent.
While in Uganda they that the LRA had shot and killed some Ugandan citizens down the road.
The students made their way to the town of Gulu, where they discovered the local boys must walk into the center of town every night to sleep so they are not abducted by the LRA.
The film goes on to illustrate the terrible mental, cultural and physical effects of the war.
"We saw a big difference between the children in America and the children in Gulu. The children [in Gulu] never cried," the narrator, Russell, said in the film.
After the main film concluded, a shorter film was shown, which discussed how students could give their time, talent and money to the cause.
"It's not about just writing a check; it's about taking action," Russell said in the film.
The Ugandan war has connections to the more well-known genocide in Darfur. Refugees from neighboring Sudan come to Uganda for safety, increasing the humanitarian crisis.
The United States Agency for International Development estimates that currently there are 1.4 million internally displaced people in Uganda and 5.7 million in the Sudan.
Once the discussion ended, students were able to donate by purchasing t-shirts, videos and wristbands made by Ugandan refugees. Students also signed up for a night of sleeping in the streets on Apr. 28 in New York City, to mirror the conditions of the Gulu children.
Freshman Neesha Mallavarapu hopes the film will prompt more people to take action against the current situation in Uganda.
"These innocent children are being abducted, and they are dying, and they are starving. It's the Holocaust of the 21st century," she said. "I think we just need people to recognize it and stop it."
Sophomore Victor Nascimento believes that students, in particular, should make a greater effort to intervene.
"I feel like students at Tufts and American universities in general don't do enough [for Africa]," he said. "For me it is a matter of integrity. To have the ability to do something abut a horrible situation like that where children are suffering for me is just a matter of basic integrity."
Dobrow believes students have begun to make an effort through the media to effect change.
"From my perspective I keep seeing more students all the time who are really passionate about marrying their interests in media studies with their commitment to social action," she said.
However, one Invisible Children representative, Chris Zwakenberg, wished that more people would have attended the event.
"This documentary is about a current situation in the world and we, as the youth of the United States, have a powerful voice in the whole world. What we do is noticed around the world so we should do all that we can to help those in need," he said.
