As a company, our philanthropic branch, That Girl Goes Global (TG3) teamed up with the boys who founded Invisible Children to support their efforts in freeing the child soldiers in Uganda. We have three days to ensure that their worldwide awareness campaign is a success, including scheduling celebrities/ governmental officials to show up in every one of our 100 designated locations. I was flown to DC a few days ago to join the boys and lobby with Senators and Congressman on Capitol Hill. The life altering, surreal, exhausting yet exhilarating experience has gone something like this:

Day One: Fly into DC from Los Angeles (an 8-hour travel day with a two hour layover in Chicago). Sprint off the flight to meet the boys and several “people of influence” (aka celebs and high ranking DC power hitters for dinner and drinks). In between conversations, we take bathroom breaks to text, call, email people about the upcoming event. After a 14 hour day, we cab it home and walk into a foreign, dark apartment, where I exhaustively throw my body in my designated bed and fell asleep.

Day Two: Wake up with “The Crew” (aka six of us all crashing in one of the nicest apartment I’ve ever seen). The Crew consists of two of the founders: Bobby Bailey and Laren Poole. Two other, vital IC staff members Jedadiah Jenkis and Adam Finck as well as little Miss Kristen Bell, a beautiful, Hollywood starlet. Morning introductions and a Starbucks run later, we head to “The Hill” and then have meeting after meeting with Senators and Congressmen for nearly 8 hours straight. Immediately after our last meeting, we jet to a private screening of the boys’ documentary and rush off to yet another dinner requiring the rubbing of elbows with people far more important than we are. We cab it home again, almost all of us falling asleep in the car, and drag our bodies upstairs where the boys proceeded to work until 3:30am. K-Bell and I fall asleep around one, after literally soaking our feet in a hot bathtub (a requirement after being in high heels for a 16 hour day).

Day Three: Wake up, make the gang breakfast since yesterday we went most of the day without eating anything. The six of us slip into our church-going clothes, hop in a taxi, and head to the State department for another screening of the Invisible Children documentary. More governmental officials and are now cooped up in our luxury apartment (loaned to us by a friend) and are all on our computers and cell phones doing anything and everything to ensure that at least 150,000 people show up around the world tomorrow, to rally for our cause. Naturally, not stressful at all.

Highlights of the trip so far: Well, first, we’re just fighting to change the world, no big deal. Second, we actually had a meeting in the West Wing of the White House yesterday with one of Barack’s chief advisers (admittedly one of the coolest things I’ve ever experienced). I’ve now witnessed the ability of normal boys to significantly sway the United States agenda first hand; I’ve waltzed with some of our country’s most influential people and candidly seen just what it takes to relentlessly pursue your passion. Not to mention I have watched “acquaintances” quickly blossom into magnificent friendships with the five people I have lived, eaten, slept, and worked with non-stop for the past several days.

Take Aways: What I’ve learned when it comes to making a difference, I don’t care how tired you get, I don’t care how many obstacles there are, or how long that dark tunnel appears… anything worth anything is worth everything. We’re on a count down, 13 hours, 8 minutes and 22 seconds before these boys try and pull off one of the most ambitious, awareness events I could possibly fathom.

As I look around the room before me, their heads down, mesmerized by their computers and last minute details, I sit here in awe of these boys. No sleep. No food. No breaks. No quitting. No excuses.

Tomorrow they will be rewarded for their hard work. Tomorrow will prove everything went right. Tomorrow will inspire millions more to get on board. But today is not tomorrow and today it’s go time. As my dad would say, “Finish strong.”

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I had lunch with a dear friend, Bobby Bailey, who is one of the guys who started a non-profit called Invisible Children. As we sat there in the heart of Beverly Hills, sipping a Fat Tire and eating from the fine dining establishment (90210 Burgers), we discussed the difficult challenges that lie before him.

You see, Bobby and his two buddies went to Uganda with 300 bucks in their pockets. Amateurs, newly graduated USC film students, these boys set out to shoot a short film. Upon their arrival and what he simply describes as “being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he along with his two SoCal surfer buddies witnessed an SUV blow up inches from the safety of their own car. A few terrified questions later, they realized they had just been formally introduced to Ugandan rebels on a typical killing spree. Needless to say, their worlds were never the same.

Rather than tell a story of a far off world, infused with adventure and child-like wonder, these boys were thrust into a world inundated with murder, kidnapping, horror, and fear. Yet in the face of this unforeseen experience, they did not turn and run, they stood their ground and captured the story to share with others.

I don’t believe that leaders are simply born, I think they are a product of their environments, that they are super heroes who voluntarily accept the heavy burdens and responsibilities of doing what the ordinary could not. I believe these boys have answered the call and in so transitioned from boys to men. As I sat across from Bobby, now only 27 and yet with a full six years of Invisible Children under his belt, doesn’t come across as a SoCal kid staring at me from his latest video montage. He firmly stands in the big shoes he’s created for himself and confidently describes the enormous, borderline impossible, work that lies before him.

Because for Bobby it’s easy to know what he’s fighting for. He’s seen it, smelled it, touched it and fallen in love with Uganda, with it’s people and the children for whom he fights. My question then? How do we convince others to join in on a battle that doesn’t and most likely will never affect them? How do we put them in a dirty, war torn pair of shoes even if only for a few seconds?

The reality is even if we take the time, if we imagine something to our best ability and exercise our compassion to its fullest extent, we still can’t begin to fathom the immutable fear infused in the Ugandan air. Not that it isn’t worthy of a valid attempt; it’s just that we have to find another, more powerful motive.

That’s when it occurred to me, and I asked my mom once, “Do you think I would have fought for African American rights in the thick of slavery even though I wasn’t black? Do you think during WWII that I would have hidden Jewish people in hopes of smuggling them to safety even though I wasn’t Jewish?” My mom’s response was simple and nearly arrogant: “ Of course you would have because I raised a daughter who would stand for those who could not, who would have given a voice to those who had theirs taken away and would have fought for people who had no more fight in them.” Well my chance is staring me in the face, the opportunity to prove her right.

Our generation is constantly criticized for being fickle, fair-weather and non-committal. Here is our chance to redefine our dedication, our fortitude and our resilience. We are setting a precedent in this world, for this world that war crimes and atrocities and injustices to humanity will not exist in our presence.

We are ordinary people being presented with an extraordinary opportunity to answer the call and be heroes. I dare you to say no to that. Join our cause, support our boys and let’s rescue the Invisible Children on April 25, around the world, in 100 cities, 10 countries, one voice will be heard. It will be ours.

Read iatg Editor, Diane’s take on Invisible Children and visit the Invisible Children website. 

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Have you ever been at that party where you look around and wonder how the hell you got in? That somehow on the invite list there was a mistake and your name was jotted down? That’s what it was like spending the past several days attending the Summit event in Aspen. Now I’m not displaying a false sense of modesty, it’s just that being considered one of the 115 top Entrepreneurs under 35 and raising over 200,000 dollars in less than 24 hours made this little Texas girl feel like she was just thrown into the big leagues.

In fact, to justify my humbling experience, I was in the room with the people like:

- Bryce Dallas Howard: the beautiful and talented actress, writer producer and offspring of Ron Howard

- Bobby Bailey: Co-Founder of Invisible Children, a revolutionizing non-profit making history

- Lauren Bush: our ex-president’s niece and a gorgeous Princeton graduate who founded FEED, a non-profit dedicated to feeding the children of the world

- Jason Goldberg: Ashton Kutcher’s brilliant business partner and creator of Punked, Beauty and the Geek, and True Beauty

- Shervin Pishevar: basically the biggest baller in the “gaming” world

- Ethan Zohn: He not only won Survivor but used his mill to start a non-profit in Africa called Grassroots Soccer

- Michael Appleton: one of the most famous photographers of our times

- Milo Ventimiglia: who wasn’t only a gorgeous actor on TV’s hit show, Heroes, but also owns his own production company called Divide

And those are just a few of the standouts on a personal level. Needless to say, it wasn’t just that one of the guys literally makes 20 million dollars a MONTH or that, for some very strange reason, practically everyone was good looking. More than the obvious and what truly blew me away was that all these people were taking time from their very busy schedules to make a difference in the world by contributing their time, their brilliance, their energy, experience, and their means to something greater than themselves.

It occurred to me that we are the kind of generation that needs more than just money, the right title, the right car and, for us ladies, the right handbags. There is what seems to be a paradigm shift in that we don’t just want to consume anymore, that we’re a dog eat dog nation and that we in it purely for ourselves. Quite the opposite.

What I witnessed the past several days as we lounged in the five star St. Regis hotel in Aspen, Colorado (okay, we may not be completely altruistic) was that our generation feels a sense of responsibility. That with the success, the fame, the wealth, the access to education and means that we want more, demand more than just dollar signs.

We simply want to change the world.

Whether it was the creator of facebook, famous actors/actresses, brilliant business men, innovative ideas, pioneering the non-profit world or a motivational speaker, proudly determined to be the voice for this generation of women; we stand for change.

The past several days in and out of meetings, panels, presentations and networking, a group of just over a hundred people pooled their time, talent and resources to spontaneously, in less than a day, raise some money. And we ended up raising just under 10 grand per hour. I witnessed some of the most inspiring, courageous, passionate people I have ever met tell me their life stories over pizza and beer at three a.m.

It’s time we came together, that contribution is the new cool, and that collaboration is the hottest color for summer. We have a LOT of work to do ladies to pick up our nation and polish her off; we can and we will make her shine.

The Summit is an honor to be a part of, a privilege to be among, and an inspiration that the impossible is in fact tangible. The problems of today’s world will be solved, but it will be you and I staring one another in the faces and and looking to each other for the answers. I don’t think we have become disenchanted with super heroes, I think it’s just that we have begun to recognize them within ourselves.

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For twenty-three years, northern Uganda has been under siege by a man named Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army. In that same time, I’ve been rocked in my mother’s arms, attended schools, theaters, museums, laughed, cried, and every night I’ve gone to bed, warm and unafraid. In the last twenty-three years in Uganda, children have been abducted, mutilated, ravished by starvation and disease, and forcefully recruited as child soldiers (some as young as 8 years old) into Kony’s terrorist organization.

It’s hard to imagine that when I’m busy complaining about my lack of designer labels, there is an entire invisible world to me, living, breathing, dying, on the other side of the globe.  It’s a hellish landscape where, if you’re lucky enough to escape the rebels, you’re still likely to lose to malnourishment, AIDS, or dangerous flooding. However, thanks to an organization called Invisible Children, these silent cries are reverberating worldwide.

Press is easy to come by regarding Northern Uganda and the tragedies there, filled with stories that will eat at your soul about children forced to murder their own mothers or consume the flesh of their teachers upon pain of their own death. After reading these horrific accounts you’re left with a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach and no idea what to do about it.

Enter three young filmmakers (Jason Russell, Bobby Bailey, and Laren Poole) who went to Uganda in 2003 to look for a story. Their documentary, Invisible Children: Rough Cut, began a longer journey to not only educate about the plight of these people but to engage a new generation of peacemakers all over the world. Beginning with screenings of their film to raise money, this non-profit organization is now dedicated to making real changes in a war-ravaged nation.

As we recently proved in our presidential election, it turns out that the apathetic nature of generation Y isn’t quite fact. Invisible Children is banking on the activist trend amongst youth, gaining their support mainly from college campuses. Students are encouraged to set up clubs to raise money for a program called “schools for schools.” There are few rules as to how to raise money, though you can ask for help to set up screenings of their film, but their advice is mostly to get creative.

The schools join together to share ideas online: through video links, creating a real community of students exchanging thoughts on how they can make a difference. The goal of schools for schools is to raise money to build and furbish new schools in Uganda, hoping to raise up a new generation of Ugandan children who will possess the tools to remake their country into one of peace and prosperity. Their philosophy is that every little bit helps: every bake sale, car wash, dance-a-thon, jog-a-thon, every piece of art, literature, fashion, anything that can not only turn a profit but begin a conversation. To those who can’t donate their money they simply ask for your words. Others can apply for positions on the teams that actually go to Uganda, some helping with physical labors, others helping to document the process with photography, film, and journalism.

Invisible Children is a truly remarkable non-profit that has a bevy of different programs to raise funds and awareness.  They are impressive not only because they help those who suffer, but they are simultaneously grooming new leaders, giving confidence that change is possible.

Check out Invisible Children and learn how you can donate or participate.

photos courtesy of invisible children

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