Aggies for Africa--Kony 2012

Joseph Kony has gone viral.

The Lord’s Resistance Army, a rebel group in Central Africa, and its leader, Joseph Kony, have been known to kidnap children in Northern Uganda and use them as soldiers.The Kony 2012 movement has been an effort to familiarize people around the world with the atrocities of the LRA.

Now the movement has come to Utah State University.

Friday marks “Cover the Night,” an event in which people have been asked to cover the streets with posters featuring Kony’s face. People will meet at 11 p.m. right in front of Old Main to collect these `posters to be put around campus. USU’s Aggies for Africa club sponsored the week of events.

The Invisible Children video on YouTube is what made Kony famous. It was screened at USU in early March.

“The Invisible Children contacts the Aggies for Africa director to come do screenings once a semester,” said Ashley Ryan, director for Aggies for Africa. “In December they contacted me to do the screening for Kony.”

At first, Ryan did not expect many people to come to the screening. Then the Invisible Children video brought Kony’s alleged crimes to international attention.

“It just happened that we scheduled it two days after the documentary went viral and the day before it just blew up,” Ryan said. “It was totally by chance.”

As a part of the week’s events leading up to Cover the Night, Aggies for Africa held a discussion with a panel of professors and a couple of students with special connections to Uganda. The main discussion on the panel was the issue of titling Kony as a celebrity.

One student, Patricia Ayaa from Uganda, was there with her unique insight on Kony and the LRA.

“In Uganda, people don’t see him as a celebrity like everyone else does,” she said. “People are wearing the name of a mass murderer on their wrists. The things that he has done, I could not support.”

“There are injustices that have been done. We can’t just let this slide,” said Jason Russell of Aggies for Africa. “We need to do things about it. Students need to get educated. If you really dig deep, you’ll realize that this is an issue.”

As an effort to raise awareness about Aggies for Africa, haircuts were done on Tuesday and Wednesday. Students were able to have steps shaved or braided into their hair.

Money donated and raised for Aggies for Africa will be sent to an organization to help rebuild livelihoods in Uganda, according to Ryan.

“I hope people educate themselves about this. It’s getting people to realize that there are issues in other countries that a lot of times we don’t see,” she said. “Do we really want to look back years from now and think, ‘we just sat there and complained?’ Or did we actually attempt to make a difference? It is a test of our morality.”