Keith Sampson and his wife, Erin, saw an episode of “Oprah” on Joseph Kony last April and their lives were changed.
In March, the group Invisible Children made a movie about Kony in order to make his actions known to the world. The video, known as “Kony 2012,” went viral a few days after it was released in March. The video now has more than 88 million views.
Kony is the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, which originated in Uganda in 1986. Since that time more than 100,000 civilians have disappeared or been killed.
In the last few years, the LRA has moved to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and the Central African Republic, kidnapping children and killing civilians.
After the movie was released, Sampson planned to organize and put up signs for the Cover The Night campaign today. The campaign is a worldwide activity in which community members put up signs about Kony to inform everyone who has not seen the video “Kony 2012” as to what he is doing in Africa.
Sampson said that he had been planning an event for Cover The Night, but it was small. Recently, he found out that another person in Warsaw was planning a Cover the Night event as well. The two met up on Wednesday night, and before Sampson knew it there were 300 people attending the event.
“This whole thing came about a lot bigger and faster than anticipated,” Sampson said. “When we met up I found out there were 300 people who signed up to attend the event from the Facebook event.”
The Warsaw Cover The Night event is from 11:30 p.m. to 3 a.m. tonight, starting at the Center Lake Park.
Sampson and a group of 300 volunteers will blanket the city with 1,000 flyers on Kony’s atrocities in Africa.
“The flyers will be up through May 1, then we will take them down,” Sampson said. “We have contacted the city and REMC about putting them on light poles and telephone poles. This whole event is about creating awareness in a lawful and respectful manner. No one will wake up and find a flyer on their front door. It is mainly in high-traffic areas of business.”
This event is just one more way that Sampson and Invisible Children can get the word out about Kony’s atrocities in Africa. Even though there are 88 million views of the video on YouTube, there are still many people who have no idea who Kony is or what he has done.
“What I want from this event is name recognition,” Sampson said. “I want people to hear the word Kony and know what the LRA is and what he has done.”
