Helping out ‘Invisible Children’

Five Falconer Central School freshmen may at first seem an unlikely source of aid for Uganda, the East African landlocked country that has been involved in the continent's longest civil war.

However, they are well on their way to collecting 10,000 books for the children who have become victims of the country's 23-year-old conflict.

Gaby Garver, a 14-year-old freshman, began the book drive after she watched a documentary on the victims of Uganda's civil war at a Levant Wesleyan Church youth group meeting. The documentary was created by the Web site, www.invisiblechildren.com, and is where Gaby went home to explore how she could contribute.

The term ''invisible children'' is used to describe the children of Uganda who would travel by night to escape abduction and forced enlistment in Joseph Kony's Lords Resistance Army. As part of the LRA's rebellion, thousands of men, women and children have been killed.

In Uganda, Joseph Kony has been leading the LRA on a decades long rebellion and has abducted an estimated 20,000 children to use as child soldiers and sex slaves. Since 1988, Kony has attacked, killed and abducted the people of Uganda in his attempt to establish theocratic control of the country.

He is considered a terrorist by the United Stated government and has been indicted, along with his top generals, for 12 crimes against humanity, and 21 counts of war crimes by the International Criminal Court in 2005.

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