When I was in high school I went to a march in D.C. It was for Kony 2012. For those of you that don’t know what Kony 2012 is, it was a march for people in Uganda. Kony was kidnapping kids from their homes and using them to train them to be military killing machines. Boys from the ages of all ages were kidnapped and brainwashed to kill.Females were used as sex slaves. Kony had a whole military that was behind him and he continued to do this 20 years. Kids watched their family members be killed in front of them or were forced to kill their families themselves. A lesson that they were property to Kony. When I watched the video that went live on March 5th, 2012 I felt like I needed to make a difference. I felt like I needed to spread the word to those around me and see if anyone else was interested in Marching for this cause. The cause to stop Kony from taking people and making an army out of children. A cause to stop Kony in his tracks and prevent him from taking any more lives. A cause to help those 30,000+ children that were kidnapped and mutilated by him. 

So I went to the march with a couple of friends that could go with me. I felt like this was important enough to make a difference. I felt like this was something I needed to do. So with my father driving, my friends by my side, and a heart ready to fight for something I believed in we set off to D.C. We didn’t know what would happen once we got there, we didn’t know if it really would make a difference. All we knew was what the video had shown us. We knew that this was something worth fighting for. The entire trip was an emotional roller-coaster and I honestly can say that it still one of those trips that sticks to my mind heavily. Even now I still have the t-shirts, the bandanas, the buttons, all of it. I still have them and they are represented in my car for me and my passengers to see. Its shown that I was there and I wanted and did make a difference. 

I remember the day of the March. We were riding the railway in D.C. All of us together, anxious, our hearts beating so fast that we were sure they were going to burst. We didn’t know how big this was, how many people were gonna show up. After all we did so much to try and get people to understand what was happening, to get them to come with us and I managed to only get a few interested in going. To our little corner of the world it was like it didn’t matter. That these kids didn’t matter. Honestly it was awful and I wish more would have gone. Being on the train going to the event all I could think was "this is crazy, are we doing the right thing?" and it was because of that thought that I looked at my friends and realized that these other people with me, cared. Just like I did, they cared about what was happening and even though it was a small number of people from our corner of the world, well....that was all that mattered. We showed up. We were part of the change. 

Once we had arrived we entered into this big open space filled with podiums that represented each country and there were hundreds, thousands of chairs. People were flooding in and in that moment, it became real. We were a part of the community, we were all standing for this issue, this cause. We moved around the crowd and found a spot and one of us saved our seats while some of us went to go get the items that were offered to us. Once we had all of our memorabilia we went back to our seats and watched as the countries talked about Kony and what was being done in response to our pleas to arrest Kony and make this issue known worldwide. People from all over made statements, talked to us about what they were doing and changed my life. My view of the world changed that day and I got to see people from all kinds of families, races, situations come together for one probable cause. Right after that we got to assemble. Once we all assembled we started our march. We went from being in the building to being outside and marching the streets of D.C. Thousands of people marched with us that day. We got to march along the creators of Invisible Children, people of Uganda, Leaders of The U.N, Leaders of the E.U, Leaders of the A.U and of course the U.S.A. We got pictures, video, we chanted, we were loud, speeches were made, and we did all of it on the streets of D.C. We were heard, we were seen, that day we made an imprint on the United States. We were saying that day that even though this is outside of our boarders, what was happening mattered. That children’s lives matter and nobody should go through that kind of suffering that they went through. 

 

That day was worth every thought, every hardship, every part of us, and can say that we were a part of the change, that we were a part of something real. Sure we felt like we were unsure about what would happen but we did it. We showed up, we made our voices heard, we made sure to put out there that we are a part of the world and its community. Sometimes when the world is going through hard times, the people band together to make a difference. A difference that could change the way the world views each other. It could make a difference for everyone and everything. We got together and we said "we are here, we are together, we are united" and it was heard. On January 15th 2013  president Barack Obama signed the Rewards For Justice Bill into law aimed to arrest Joseph Kony. Just a year after the march LRA Killings went down 67% and two out of five of the top commanders turned themselves in and Uganda got the  funds to build schools for children who are going through and trying to deal with the trauma they went through as well as give them education. We made that difference. Marching made that difference. 

Sometimes you need to do the right thing, no matter how big or small and that day, that day will forever be a part of me.

Our Liberty is bound together 

 Check out the Youtube video I made with footage from the March in D.C