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KONY 2012 - Children, Equity strategy implications?

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KONY 2012 - Children, Equity strategy implications?

To: Children, Equity Network (within The Drum Beat network)

Re: KONY 2012 Campaign

http://www.comminit.com/policy-blogs/content/lessons-learned-kony-2012-campaign-0

What do you think of the KONY 2012 campaign? When you assess it from either a general development effectiveness perspective and/or its application of development communication and media strategies, what lessons (positive or negative) do you draw for effective action related to children and equity issues? Riona McCormack, the REPSSI Regional Communications Officer in South Africa, has written a blog that outlines her opinion of "Lessons learned from the KONY 2012 campaign"…"Love it or hate it, the online phenomenon that is KONY 2012 offers valuable lessons to development communicators…" You can review this blog at http://www.comminit.com/policy-blogs/content/lessons-learned-kony-2012-campaign-0 Please do take a look and then share your strategic assessment. Either reply by email or click on the Read More link below, log in and comment. All of our work will benefit from a shared critique of what has become a very prominent and somewhat controversial initiative.

Please do go to Riona's blog ""Lessons learned from the KONY 2012 campaign" at http://www.comminit.com/policy-blogs/content/lessons-learned-kony-2012-campaign-0 And whilst there please vote in the poll in the right margin.

(With apologies for this instance of potential double posting)

Thanks for engaging - Warren

Twitter: @warrencomminit

Facebook: The Communication Initiative Network http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Communication-Initiative-Network/344005148956579

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Hi    Presently iam in Uganda

Hi    Presently iam in Uganda and particularly Northern Uganda. This issue of Kony and the documentaries going around is making the people made .How on earth would the film have whites sorry to mention i felt bad! .Is this some flattery going on in the world ? !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm not sure how a propaganda

I'm not sure how a propaganda campaign is relevant to the practice of development communications. I will write more on that later. There is, however, an excellent commentary and analysis on the AllAfrica.com site about the Kony 2012 movement by Alex de Waal - http://allafrica.com/stories/201203110356.html.

To: Children, Equity network

To: Children, Equity network (part of Drum Beat network)

From: Denis Godwin, Gulu University.

Hey Guys, No time in the history of the social media that a video has overcome the challenges of advocacy.This guys did it in spade. If the main goal of the video is create awareness of humanitarian situation(sufferings,grief,sorrow,loss) of people of northern Uganda,then IC has set a pace. Being born,raised and working in Gulu,i kept my hears on the ground and got some perspective of major issues including:

1.Invisible Children being profit making incorporated in the US,collecting lots of fund but using only 23.5% on the programmings on the ground,and saving the rest as profits.This is the first M of the 3 Ms-(Mission,Movies and Movement) 2.Invisible Children (Movies) program has been overstated,inflated,overemphasized and some organisations were concern with IC claiming to own the credit of driving communities of northern uganda out of violent conflict,which many organisation suggest IC could have arranged of joint advocacy probably this explains why the world has targeted/singled IC and they are shouldering the blame and critics etc.Probably,recognising others efforts adds value to each others work.Peace in northern uganda came due to collaboration and partnership of all stakeholders.This has to be appreciated by all partners. 3.Lastly, people looks at the sky wondering what the MOVEMENT arm of IC is concern with. Is it a political wing for alternative intervention?in case of failure to achieve through peaceful strategies of MOVIES & MISSION? "We don't want to go back to war" If they disturb Kony from CAR,he may finds his way back to Ugaada to disturb, distabalise,and terrorise Northern Uganda,No to relapse to violent conflict.This is northern Uganda greatest fear of IC HOT CASE-video/movement.

I like this"Balmoi Steven - I find it unfair and short sighted most of the criticisms on the Invisible Children’s (IC) documentary. At the peak of the insurgency, northern Uganda had the biggest concentration of both local and international NGOs more than any other area in Africa. However, apart from providing a few low jobs for the people of northern Uganda, top ones for other people and paying them fat wages, what infrastr...uctural and educational benefits did our people take as part of their share of the NGOs’ lobbying on their behalf? On the other hand, IC has so far done a lot more than those NGOs that have so far now left Acholi sub region in haste for Karamoja region which currently is the hottest cake to NGOs. They have left the psycho-social, educational and the livelihood rehabilitation to a few organizations like IC to shoulder. Pay a visit to Layibi College, Kitgum High, Sacred Heart SS, Gulu High School, Awere SS and several schools in northern Uganda and see not only the dormitories, classrooms, science labs and libraries that are well furnished and stocked, but talk also to hundreds of students who are on IC scholarship in these schools and universities. In Gulu SS where I am teaching, IC is currently building a multi complex library, the first of its kind in the whole of the greater north. I won’t refute the fact that quiet a portion of the donation that IC is receiving may not be reaching the intended beneficiaries, but still the work that IC is doing on the ground deserves a pat on the back Kony is still active in the Central African Republic, DRC and South Sudan therefore, the argument that the timing of the documentary is suspect and it’s no longer necessary because there is relative peace in northern Uganda is short sighted and annoying to a person who cares for humanity as a whole, but not just his country and tribe mates"

In summmery,"Steve Oola - Steve, you and I know very well the struggles northern Ugandans went through in the last 26 years. It wasn't IC campaign that restored the normalcy we enjoy today. In fact, i remeber a te-yat you hosted were some names were mentioned amongs...t peace spoilers who allegedly sent text messages to Kony. There are conflict entreprenuers who holds out as the most prominent peacebuilders. The fact is not all that glitters is gold. No amount of billions could have bought the relative peace in northern Uganda today. Not even US Drones or aerial bombs will achieve an inch within the DR Congo or CAR. In fact, the US has always been fighting Kony. We know this for a fact. From Operations North to 100 Special Forces, the US has been fighting with Museveni to no fruition.

In fact, according to wikileaks, they knew of all the rots in the UPDF and all the atrocities being committed by both sides of the conflict, but that did not end their support and the war and yet it took, local leaders, peace actors, mega fm and dwog cen paco -only local actors to generate and maintain the momentum that finally led to the Juba peace talks and the final withdrawal of LRA forces from northern Uganda. Who slept with children in the bus parks at a time when millions of children were trekking several kilometers daily in search for security? Ask anyone about the in US roles in Juba? Who pushed the agenda for Plan B that led to Operation Lightening Thunder? Who funded Iron Fist 1 and II? What effects did these have? The fact remains, the LRA isn't a hollywood story, its real, happening but with a context bigger than Kony the evil man. There are evil men in Uganda today who holds up dying children rushing to kampala for treatment-how evil can that be? There are evil men, who swindles billions of shillings meant for HIV/TB and children dying of Malaria, how evil can that get? There are evil men and women who are evicting desperate and returning IDPs from over a decade of encampment to creat space for animals and grow sugar they can't afford, how evil? and now and no amount of dramatization can capture the complexity of the conflict. Between Kony and Museveni, there is no lesser evil person in law but to trivalise it.

I have just given general perspective,not for specific reference and quotation.

Denis Godwin, Undergraduate Student of Information Technology Department of Computer Science. Gulu University.

RE: [Development Networks] KONY 2012 - Children, Equity strategy

I think you're right. The Kony 2012 campaign is more propaganda than social and behavior change communications.

Thom

Thomas Ofem Email: thomasofem@gmail.com; proudlynigerian@hotmail.com; tofem70@yahoo.com Phone: +234-706-418-4042 SKYPE: thomas.ofem

Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2012 18:07:36 -0700 To: thomasofem@gmail.com From: oa-incoming@comminit.com Subject: Re: [Development Networks] KONY 2012 - Children, Equity strategy implications?

((( Reply ABOVE this LINE to POST a COMMENT ))) Greetings tofem, Comment by Alfiaj: I'm not sure how a propaganda

I'm not sure how a propaganda campaign is relevant to the practice of development communications. I will write more on that later. There is, however, an excellent commentary and analysis on the AllAfrica.com site about the Kony 2012 movement by Alex de Waal - http://allafrica.com/stories/201203110356.html [1].

Read more http://networks.comminit.com/node/8507#comment-10361 [2]

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Hi I have lived in Uganda

Hi

I have lived in Uganda for 17 years and people here are mad about the video believing it is some white guy trying to get rich off our past. Kony left Uganda about 7 years ago and people in the North are trying to heal their wounds and get on with new lives. A screening of the film in Lira was stopped as people threw things at the screen...It was too insulting for them...

Much of the film is inaccurate and the focus on the director and his son has backfired even if his intentions were legitimate it has turned against them. Pure propoganda for the US to justify increasing a military presence in the region but Africans are not stupid and realize what is going on....You can fool some people some of the time but not all the people all the time....

Here in Kampala it is the talk of the town and people have started posting their responses in local media (radio stations/ facebook/blogs/print media) which the world should also check out for a more accurate perspective. A local journalist has written an excellent series in his blog nakedchiefs.comwhich gives a correct historical perspective. Check it out for some balance.

As somebody working in development it has done more damage than good as now people will question all motives of external interventions before getting involved. In a country where people do not openly speak out about much this has really hit the fan and I haven't seen such condemnation in a long time.

My daughter (11 years) even watched it at school today and it made her cry she said because of the emotional intensity. She is Ugandan and it made her angry, when she was a small kid she was always scared of Kony but since he has gone believes we should be caring about children dying from Nodding disease which so far has not been properly investigated. Some IC funds should be used to support families traumatized by that instead of wasting money on posters around the world or rubber "guilt" bands because the world did nothing when the worst abductions of children took place 1998-2003.

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