Nabil Syafiq

Kony 2012, Stop Kony, is a campaign movement run by a non-profit organization, Invisible Children Inc, founded in 2004 by Jason Russel, Ben Keesey and Laren Poole. They are filmmakers who went to Uganda to film the situation there as the LRA ( Lords Resistance Army) wreaked havoc, kidnapping children, training children to be soldiers, forced labour and prostitution. The campaign focus on awareness, making sure that they are heard. They produce videos to create awareness such as the KONY 2012 video (above) which went viral on youtube with more than 70 million hits after the video was released on 12 March. The plan is to train the Uganda troops and supply them with weapons, also to build and help the affected Ugandan people, from donations from the mass public.

So am i  pro-Kony 2012? NO! I personally think it’s full of bullshit propaganda. I’ll admit though that i was sucked into believing it was true until i researched more about the movement. The reason why I believe it  was because the video they produced was made in a way to make one feel very guilty and sad. They are good filmmakers! Now I’m very aware of Kony, and also very aware it’s a scam trying to take your hard earned money.

The first reason for believing it’s a scam is by looking at their financial reports (source). If you can understand the 2011 report, only $8.6 million which is 32% of donations went  help the kids of Uganda but the money goes through the Ugandan Army before reaching the children, with most of the cases of corruption in the Ugandan Army,one can guess that not all of the 32% reaches the children. Another $9 million went to staff salaries, travel and transportation and film making. Any normal sane person can see that they are taking more for themselves than giving it to the Ugandan people. Can you imagine only almost 1/4 of the donations were given to the charity? The organization spends more money to produce films to create awareness instead of helping the charity. Logically, i think the purpose of awareness is to get more donations, simple logic! Now almost everyone is aware, who knows how much they earn this year, how big their personal pockets will be! The CEO of the organization who is a film maker is driving a very expensive sports car.

So how transparent is this organization? Invisible Children Inc is rated only a mere score of 51.52, which is 50% (source), by a charity rating. The reason they got a low score is because they lack of external auditing community, their financial reports are audited by one of them, a solo auditor. This kind of practice usually ends up with the auditor covering up tracks of them pocketing donations for themselves. I don’t know for sure if this happened, but come on! Logic!

The second reason is, Invisble Children Inc’s aim is to provide necessary training and supplies to the Ugandan Army, to capture Kony and the LRA. The LRA’s army consist of mostly children kidnapped and trained by Kony. So the Ugandan Army have to go against the children soldiers, killing them, to capture Kony! A very ironic purpose. They want to kill children to save children. What the hell? I have little faith in the Ugandan Army, after cases of looting and rape of girls as young as 16 years old! (source) So one might imagine what will happen to the people of Uganda when the Ugandan soldiers march their way to find Kony, who is no longer in Uganda anymore. Some say he is in Congo, some speculate he is dead.

Third reason, the organization have manipulated facts for personal strategic purposes. In my opinion, a sincere enough charity cause would not go to that extend for their personal gains.

Now they have already created a big awareness among the mass, they have won some of your hearts, are you going to donate?

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