The Time Has Come To Act

Peace talks continue between the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the Ugandan government, and during this precarious time, it's more important than ever to show your outrage of the use of the child soldiers by the LRA. For an overview on the situation in Uganda as well to sign a "Children should never be soldiers" declaration, please visit World Vision.

Here's a couple of the things you can do:

• Check out Invisible Children's website for a bunch of things you can do to support the ending of use of child soldiers in this war, from hosting video viewing parties of the documentary created by the founders of Invisible Children to purchasing items made in Uganda to help support the restoration of a torn country from war. They also have a World Tour to show the video and raise awareness. And they did this amazing event called The Global Night Commute in which they encouraged people from around the world to walk to a pre-determined spot and spend the night outdoors, much in the fashion of what the Gulu Walkers (see next bullet point) have to do every single night! The Invisible Children group are a young and inspired bunch that are determined to reach out to young people and get them to ACT.
• Participate in the Gulu Walk on Saturday, October 21st, a walk to raise money and awareness for the children in Uganda who have to walk approximately 4 hours a day (2 in the morning and 2 at night) in order to sleep in a public area where they will be safe from the LRA kidnapping them and forcing them to fight. For the children, these walks are tiring and dangerous on their own and the places they end up sleeping typically have no adult supervision, which results in rapes, fights, and other unhealthy behaviors amongst the children. This keeps them from a greater evil, but is still not a good solution for these children. The only solution is to raise awareness over the atrocities bestowed on the children of Northern Uganda and to advocate to stop the war! I did the Gulu Walk last year and had an amazing time, they do this internationally (including in Gulu itself!) so I'm sure you can find one in a city near you. Check out the website to find out.
• Lobby for Northern Uganda at Washington D.C. I'm Very tempted to do this even though I don't have much vacation time left for work and I'm not sure how I'd get there (we're trying to save money right now). There can't be anything more amazing than going to the heart of our government itself and demanding that we stand up for these innocent children. I think this would be one of the most amazing options from my list, and I truly encourage anyone who can to make the trip to D.C. I'll let you know if I'm able to pull this one off and get my arse over there! For more information on lobbying in D.C. please check out here, over here too, and one more.

Now go out there and BECOME THE STORY!