With the help of­ social studies­­ teacher Katie Ryan, five freshmen have formed a club to aid refugee children in Uganda. They are helping these children through the non-profit organization Invisible Children. “We decided to start this club after seeing the [Invisible Children] movie in class. We did research, saw that we could help and did so,” said freshman Naja Richburg. The children that they are helping are either orphans that are forced to become night commuters or soldiers in the civil war.

Uganda has been in the throes of a civil war for 23 years with very little hope of seeing the end soon. The civil war started when a woman named Alice Lakwena convinced a group of people that God wanted them to overthrow the Ugandan government. The group formed the Lord’s Resistance Army. The LRA believe that children are easily brainwashed and decided that children would make perfect soldiers because of this. Since then many Ugandan children have been forced to commute miles away from their home every night to sleep in schools and hospitals.  

Northwest’s chapter of the Invisible Children organization plans to achieve a great deal to help raise money for the cause. Some plans that are already in action are the Change for Change program and the Invisible Children book drive. 

The members of the club collect books then send them to Better World Books. This organization sells the books and all of the profit goes to Invisible Children. So far the club has collected about 250 books from Ryan’s classes alone. The book drive will run until the spring.

In several classrooms, there is a mason jar where students can place any change that they have leftover from lunch or just sitting in the bottom of their bag. These jars are a part of the Change for Change program sponsored by the club. All of the money collected from students goes to the Invisible Children organization to help aid children in Uganda.

“If everybody were to donate just one dollar, we would have over $1,000. That would be amazing,” said freshman Austen Lax.