Image courtesy of Thefirstposk.co.uk

We all know about the horrible incidences of rape and sexual assault in our country. But we rarely recognize how commonplace it is around the world. In many countries, rape is a weapon used in wartime. Women are made to feel like these incidences are their fault, and they are punished for it when they are simply victims. Africa is a continent where a history of rape as a war tool has been used. Countries like Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo have all reported incidences of mass rape. However, there is an emerging way for women to fight back.

Sonnet Ehlers, a South African woman, was working at a hospital where she frequently met victims of sexual assault. She heard terrifying stories day after day but was inspired by one woman she met. This young woman said to Ehlers, “If only I had teeth down there!” This sparked Ehlers’ journey to create her controversial invention.

In 2005, Rape-aXe (formerly known as Rapex) hit the market in South Africa. The country had the highest incidence of rape in the world, about 1.7 million, according to statistics from 2007. The device is a like a latex female condom except for the fact that it has sharp barbs located inside. It is designed to cause pain and brand rapists if they attempt to attack a woman. The barbs, during penetration, attach to the penis. The device must be removed by a doctor which lends itself to identifying the attacker as someone who attempted rape. They can then be turned over to the authorities.

Ehlers’ invention was met with criticism. Some argued that this device could cause the woman being attacked to receive more violence, possibly sending attackers into a rage. Others have said there needs to be a change in society so women do not have to go to these lengths; wearing one of these devices is like being compliant with the fact that rape occurs.

To Ehlers, the system has not been doing its job of bringing victims to justice so her invention will do just that. She has given away nearly 30,000 in anticipation of the FIFA World Cup which began on June 11.

Although some people may criticize Ehlers, I commend her for taking a stand. It’s true that a change needs to occur in the case of rape in many societies, but I believe this device could spark that change in South Africa. It could bring attackers to justice, save victims and prevent the occurrence of sexual assault to begin with. Although Rape-aXe will not completely end rape, it could be the tipping point necessary to create societal changes in South Africa and possibly other countries around the world.

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Bound4Life is a recognized nonprofit organization dedicated to ending abortions and increasing adoption rates. Most recognizable by the red tape they wear across their mouths during protests, the Florida-based evangelical group has established itself both nationally and internationally.

With over 30 years of praying for the revival of the “Elijah generation” and two churches under his belt, the founder and promoter of Bound4Life, a self-proclaimed “grassroots prayer mobilization movement,” Lou Engle has garnered some heavy media attention for his newest “visionary” movement known as TheCall.

Engle’s assemblage seeks to congregate two generations of worshipers willing to come forth and embrace none other than the Christian faith. Through radical prayer groups and fasting periods, Engle hopes to grasp the attention of the younger age bracket by inspiring holy acts of justice. The intention of the movement is to “awaken and revive the young and the old, to fight the vices eating away at our society.” Those specific vices include two of the most excessively disputed topics in the U.S. today: homosexuality and abortion.

Late last year TheCall decided to take its vow of silence even further by launching their anti-abortion and anti-homosexuality proposition in Uganda, a nation inspired by the Pentecostal movement and its ministry for over 50 years.

In October 2009, Ugandan parliament supported a private member’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill that proposed criminalizing acts of aggravated homosexuality. The bill applies to anyone previously convicted of deviance, is HIV-positive, or those who engage in homosexuality with minors. The bill also indicates penalties given to Ugandans who have same-sex relations outside of Uganda as well as governmental organizations supporting LGBT liberties. Currently homosexuality is illegal in Uganda and in many other sub-Saharan nations, deemed punishable by at least 14 years incarceration.

It has been widely noted that American fundamentalist groups have inspired this extreme legislation. In March 2009, three evangelical Christians; Scott Lively, Caleb Lee Brundidge and Don Schmierer “experts on homosexuality,” presented a workshop in Uganda’s capital city, Kampala. Over the three-day seminar, the men preached about the evil institution of homosexuality and how it would eventually lead to the defeat of “the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity.”

The bill was defeated for some time, but recently Lou Engle and his colleagues at TheCall have stepped out to “help” the Ugandans. Blaming “smoking [tobacco], drugs, and homosexuals pumping in their money to destroy [our] youth” as causes of disruption. Engle’s senseless words towards the U.S.’s own Prop 8 reflect his stance that homosexuals are possessed by demons.

TheCall’s recent spiritual excursion is urging Uganda have a “national repentance.” By asking the Ugandans for a day of entreaty, TheCall hopes to make them realize the moral and societal decay around them. Rightfully, many fear TheCall’s programs may do more damage than good.

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Kristen Bell is hands down, awesome! She’s the kind of girl who’s easily misjudged, placed in the wrong box, and categorized with the other Comatose Barbies of the world because she’s the classic petite, gorgeous, blond bombshell with baby blue eyes. However, assumptions and stereotypes have a way of humbling those too quick to judge and I have no doubt Kristen often offers big pieces of humble pie for those who make that mistake with her.

We all know Kristen from things like Veronica Marz, Gossip Girl, Heroes and Forgetting Sarah Marshall. But what you don’t know is this actress is the real deal, launching her professional career on Broadway (big deal). While the obvious is that she’s gorgeous, successful, rich, and famous; what’s far more compelling than what the world says is “important” about this Michigan cutie, is the girl she is inside.

Kristen Bell is smart, savvy and passionate about making a difference in this world. She recently flew to DC to rally alongside the boys who founded Invisible Children. Together they lobbied against the war in Uganda, for rebel leader (Joseph Kony) to be arrested, and for the child soldiers forced to fight against their wills to be freed.

Kristen is fighting for things bigger than herself, using her celebrity platform to change the world and providing positive female role models in the process. While we celebrate her on the big screen and applaud her on the red carpet, we must keep in mind that her waltz in the entertainment industry is but the icing on the cake of who she really is and what she really stands for. Kristen, we at i am that girl are honored to call you one of us. So keep saving the world, lady, because we will gladly follow your lead.

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“I’ve been abducted. Come to The Rescue.”

4,000 people were voluntarily abducted on April 25th in Santa Monica (and thousands more across the world) in protest of Joseph Kony’s kidnappings to fuel his army in Uganda with child soldiers.

4,000 people, bound together with rope, walked silent and single file 2 miles down the coast to the Santa Monica City Hall.

4,000 people set up camp, there on the manicured lawns, amongst the well-pruned rose bushes, and prepared to wait until sufficient media coverage was generated and we were deemed “rescued.”

As night fell and the water-heavy air settled onto every vulnerable surface, a teeming mass of volunteers (of mostly high school and college students) proved that upcoming generations refuse to be labeled “apathetic.” Through the night we wrote letters to senators and congressmen demanding American legislation to commit to ending this atrocious war in Uganda that routinely and systematically slaughters children in the name of God.

But, more than anything, the night was about the visceral power of feeling united in a cause with our peers.

As we all feel ourselves bonding more to our computer screens and iPhones and less connected to the real world (even as we gain unlimited access to it in the palms of our hands), there’s a kind of magic that descends when that many of us can stand together in one place, at one time, for one reason. We, the Young Americans, shook the cyber clouds from our heads long enough to hear the desperate pleas from our contemporaries halfway around the world and were motivated to action.

While we shivered in the moderately chilly climate, and Alexis exhausted herself lobbying in DC—while we joked about skipping out to make last call, and Alexis lamented yet another political networking happy hour—while we all knew we would prefer to be in our jammies in front of the TV—we also knew that our mild discomforts and sleepiness couldn’t even touch the horrors and the bone-deep exhaustion that even now manifest in the fragile lives of abducted child soldiers in Uganda.

As a generation that’s never been asked to sacrifice the everyday luxuries that we mistake for necessities, we are gazing into our changing economic climate with a surprising clarity. Instead of throwing the proverbial tantrum over the reneged promises of fast cars and swimming pools, we are instead choosing to shed our childishly simplistic views of the world and actually apply our expensive degrees to more than binge drinking and self-entitlement.

While protesting the abductions of the invisible children, I realized that I, myself, had been abducted from the life that had always petted me and told me I could change the world, but had never asked me to. I find myself willingly embarking down a new path that promises a fulfillment deeper than instant gratification; the kind that digs deep into flesh and muscle and begins to transform the very fibers that make us human. And best of all, I find myself in good company.

Read other articles on Invisible Children

photos by diane ozanich

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Unfortunately God did not grant me a window seat on the four hour flight home, a travesty seeing as it was a 6:15am flight and I hadn’t slept in days. I had dressed in the dark, my punk sneakers reeked of “rebel” my thick red aviators and Emo beanie hid my blood shot eyes and the CK1 I sprayed on (to cover my lack of showering) made me smell of 1994. To an outsider I must have looked like a concert groupie, still up from the night before, experiencing the worst hangover of her life. The reality: I was experiencing the worst hangover of my life but it wasn’t the traditional, self-induced alcohol binge; it was so much more. I was experiencing the first ever, “post-activist, rally rebel, nine hours of sleep in three days, no-voice left” hang over of a true trailblazer.

The beauty of this kind of hangover is you’re not simply left with a migraine, nausea and vague snap shots of the night before (half of which you want desperately to forget), you’re also left with a better version of yourself because what you did. We rallied the nation. We inspired the world. Sure maybe we were tired and needed countless hours to recoup our exhausted bodies, but what we received in return was almost criminal.

If you read my blogs, you know that I was in DC rallying with the Invisible Children boys and that on April 25^th we had an impossible task looming before us. Our insecurities, our doubt and our fear flirted with our confidence, tempting us to join Café Resignation but we stayed strong, determined to pull off one of the most ambitious awareness campaigns taking place in 10 countries and 100 cities around the world to end a war in Uganda.

The night before, I couldn’t sleep. The anticipation was exponentially worse than any Christmas Eve I could remember. I wanted to know if all our work would be in vain, if we were going to be a success, or fall in the wasteland of mediocrity. I awoke before the alarm went off and we went to our designated location to wait. “If you build it, they will come,” echoed in my head. We would soon find out.

Then it happened, like a miracle, an answered prayer, as droves of people came streaming in. Part of me was in disbelief, the other part arrogantly waved the flag of, “I told you so.” Either way, I will never forget watching hundreds if not thousands of people marching in front of our country’s capital, demanding change. I have never been a part of something like this, witnessed the power of our voice, the influence of numbers and the strength of a passion induced cause.

Icing on the cake: I was asked to give a talk to the Passionistas who stood before me. Humbled, honored, I took the microphone and, to this day, I have no idea what I said. I remember bright lights, cameras flashing, the crowd roaring, and the most overwhelming sensation of pure, unbridled inspiration pouring from my heart, from my entire body and my voice. If there were ever a time I wish I could have stopped time, if I could have freeze framed or crystallized a moment in history, it was then for I have never felt so alive in my entire life.

I walked off stage and the rally raged on with music, camaraderie among strangers, and pride in ourselves. Then we proceeded to endure torrential rain that was all too familiar to my infamous Survivor days, yet none of us were discouraged. Another night of no sleep, but this one sweetly welcomed as I recognized the taste of success, the smell of accomplishment, and the feeling of gratitude. The sun came up sooner than I thought and our faces betrayed our tiredness as we gathered our belongings, thanked the hundreds of people who also chose to weather the storm, and we parted ways.

I returned to our luxurious apartment. I packed up my things and I hopped on an airplane to return to the real world. Just like that, I returned to feeling normal again, like a Superhero who changed back into civilian clothes.

So, yes, to the naked eye I was a party girl gone too far, paying the appropriate consequences for my reckless behavior the night before, brutally catching an early flight home. But to those who where there, I, along with them, was a warrior. I was a girl willing to fight for something bigger than myself and offering the most essential: sleep, food, and shelter as collateral. I was a hero; we all were.

We won that battle, but the war goes on and this is but the first of many. However, the taste of victory is contagious, it’s addictive and I’ve been left wanting, needing more. We will end a war in Uganda. We will rescue the child soldiers of Joseph Kony and we will make history. But for now, I am turning off my phone, I am checking out, and I will voluntarily lose a day of my life to the allure of my bed and my sleep-deprived body’s necessity for rest.

photo by jim girardi

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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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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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