 "Photo: Katherine Fan")
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Nearly 4,000 people convened at the Travis County Exposition Center Saturday, braving 85-degree heat, portable toilets and a lack of showers. They were participating in "Displace Me," an event organized by Invisible Children Inc., designed to simulate the plight of civil-war-torn Uganda.
The participants, mostly students from universities across Texas, made make-shift shelters out of cardboard. Their contribution of saltine crackers and water bottles was taken away upon registration to be redistributed later during the program, symbolizing the paucity of food in Ugandan relocation camps.
The phrase "invisible children" refers to children belonging to the Acholi ethnic group forcibly abducted to become child soldiers by the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda.
"I just decided to drive up today," said Josh White, a Baylor University sophomore. "I think it's important for the world to see that we as young people care about our community and our world and to show we're not as apathetic as people think we are."
The "Displace Me" participants watched clips from documentaries about the civil war's impact, wrote letters to senators requesting help, and spent the night outdoors in sleeping bags and cardboard shelters.
"We are different colors, but one people," said guest speaker Ocia Jacob, a Ugandan "invisible child." Abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army as a boy, he escaped and hid in fear of being recaptured. During that time, he told his story to the producers of the documentary, "Invisible Children."
"He is the face of 'invisible children,' because he has touched so many people," said Jenna Stauffer, a 21-year-old Invisible Children volunteer.
Stauffer is one of several staff members traveling across the country with the Invisible Children organization who have taken a year off from college for the cause.
Invisible Children organized 13 teams this year to present the documentary in churches and schools across the nation. The four-member Texas team alone hosted more than 130 screenings this past year, said Brice Crozier, 23, who headed the team.
The teams hosted "Displace Me" in 14 other cities Saturday night, totaling more than 67,000 people nationwide.
"I think it's very cool that the youth of this country are helping the youth of Africa," said Waco resident Melanie Smith.
Smith's 20-year-old daughter Katie Burch is working with a team currently in Chicago, while her younger daughter, 11-year-old Audrey Smith, raised $100 at her elementary school for the cause last year and has written to U.S. senators and children in Uganda.
"Invisible Children has given our family a lot of purpose," Melanie Smith said.
UT-San Antonio junior Jeremy Jjemba has a personal tie to Uganda. Jjemba, who came to the U.S. after he lost his mother to AIDS in 1997, attended "Displace Me" looking for material for his second book.
"Many of the people in Uganda don't believe these movements work, because they've been colonized by the Western world for so long," Jjemba said. "I want to prove to them that such activities really work."
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