Boston University’s Invisible Children awaits the upcoming sequel to “Kony 2012,” which will provide updated info on the Lord’s Resistance Army, led by warlord Joseph Kony, in Uganda.
The video will include an update on “Cover the Night,” scheduled for April 20 nationwide, and will detail the activities of the LRA to show the army and its outcomes are “still prevalent and still active,” said Amanda Crawford-Staub, BU’s Invisible Children president and a College of Arts and Sciences sophomore.
“The second video is really targeted at people who really do want to stay educated and who want to know what they can do next toward the ultimate goal of ending the war,” Crawford-Staub said.
“Kony 2012: Part II” is expected to be released this week.
BU IC gained more than 200 new members on Facebook a few days after “Kony 2012” premiered March 5, Crawford-Staub said.
The group is set to screen “Kony 2012” for an audience Wednesday. Invisible Children representatives and a “roadie” from Uganda will be in attendance.
The original 30-minute video, which aimed to make Kony “famous” for capture, gained Internet fame with nearly 87 million views on YouTube since its release.
Many students were critical of how much money Invisible Children spends to create its campaigns, including production and travel costs, Crawford-Staub said.
“People forget that Invisible Children is not an ordinary nonprofit,” Crawford-Staub said. “They work to produce videos. They started out as filmmakers.”
However, other critics of Invisible Children and the campaign, such as College of Arts and Sciences freshman Luca Moneti Schliemann, said the nonprofit organization oversimplifies a complex problem.
“People felt the need to share [“Kony 2012”] with others,” Schliemann said. “I think they had the misconception that simply by sharing the video they were actually doing something to help the cause, whereas [in reality] they weren’t actually getting up and trying to work themselves to try to find a solution to the problem.”
Schliemann said the bad press about director Jason Rusell removing his pants in the streets of San Diego during a mental breakdown turned his interest away from the campaign.
“I knew that there was nothing in my power that I could immediately do to help,” Schliemann said. “Simply being aware of the problem is a good thing, spreading the word to other people who do have the potential to help is a good thing, but I just didn’t think that I had the means to do that.”
COM junior Julie Ha said though the campaign is powerful, she questioned the veracity and genuineness of the video.
“It’s sort of like the whole Occupy Wall Street thing – everyone’s just so hyped up about it,” Ha said. “Not everyone really knows the depth of this.”
However, College of Engineering freshman Garrett Moore said IC’s campaign has brought attention to the events in Central Africa.
“People need to keep in mind that although Jason Russell was the leader, he was not the movement,” Moore said. “I’m glad that it has promoted awareness for the conflict.”
