Trinity Students 'Rescued' by Oprah

Photo above shows Trinity Christian College students who participated in a successful attempt to draw attention to the plight of child soldiers.

After nearly a week of standing in the rain, sleeping wherever they could find shelter and marching through the streets of Chicago hoping to attract the attention of someone who would aid them in raising awareness of their cause, Trinity students and hundreds of others assembled outside of Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Studios in early May.

They were waiting to be “rescued” as part of Invisible Children’s worldwide “The Rescue” campaign to raise awareness of Ugandan children abducted to serve in the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) headed by rebel leader Joseph Kony.

According to the Invisible Children website, an integral part of each group’s success involved awaiting “rescue” from a well-known media or political figure. The Chicago group aimed high, refusing to give up until one of the people on their list, which included Oprah and the Obamas, stepped up.

The Chicago march was one of a hundred “Rescue of Joseph Kony Child Soldiers” events in 10 countries put on by Invisible Children, Inc. Invisible Children is a non-profit organization that strives to spread awareness about the plight of Uganda’s people, especially its children.

Three students from California founded Invisible Children in 2005 after filming a 2003 documentary about the war raging between the Ugandan government and the Lord’s Resistance Army.

Trinity students have taken part in other campaigns associated with this movement, including the Global Night Commute in 2006 and Displace Me in 2008. This year, members of Trinity’s Social Justice Chapter and Social Work Student Organization rallied other fellow students to join hundreds of participants in the march on April 25 from Chicago’s Federal Plaza to Grant Park. But after nearly a week had passed, Chicago remained the last city in the world whose group had not yet been rescued.

The figures the Chicago group called upon were: President Barack Obama or his wife Michelle, Vice President Joe Biden, rock musician Bono, and Oprah.

Finally, on Friday morning, May 1, Oprah modified her show to include a brief interview with Invisible Children founders and filmmakers Bobby Bailey, Jason Russell, and Laren Poole who were standing outside, surrounded by a sea of 500 bedraggled, but joyful, Rescue supporters. The three men made the trip to Chicago to rally the crowd.

Junior Michelle DeHaan of Orange City, Iowa, helped organize the first wave of 22 Trinity students downtown on that rainy Saturday and was in the crowd awaiting Oprah almost a week later.

“Although the triumph of being on the Oprah show was very exciting, the most amazing experience was the united feeling we had as a generation to stand up for what we believe in and take a stance that we will not allow something of this magnitude to happen in our world today but that we will stand up for what we believe in and that means protecting these children,” said DeHaan.

Students created a tag team in order to relieve each other during the week and allow time for classes and final semester projects.

“We had to keep reminding ourselves why we were doing this. Why we were out there and that the most important thing was to raise awareness and support to finally end this war that’s been going on for 23 years—a war older than its soldiers,”said Jennie Hill, of Guston, Kentucky,

Four Trinity students from the Acting on Aids chapter were attending the Mobilization to End Poverty conference in Washington, D.C., and took time out to join The Rescue march there. The D.C. group was rescued within in an hour by Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma.

To read more about the movement, the film, and the history of the ongoing struggle in Uganda visit www.invisiblechildren.com.