The outside walls of various Littlefork and International Falls businesses were plastered with more than 1,000 posters Friday night.
The posters reading “Stop Kony” and “Kony 2012” were an effort by high school students from both towns to spread awareness of an international issue. Joseph Kony is a politically-motivated warlord in Uganda who has orchestrated troops that have abducted more than 30,000 children in Uganda and surrounding countries to use them as soldiers, said Kailyn Ballard, a senior at Littlefork-Big Falls High School.
Ballard and Falls High School student Maria Shermoen each gathered several friends, and the group of 13 students mounted posters on light posts, street corners, benches and businesses, starting in Littlefork and ending in International Falls.
“We put them everywhere — pretty much anywhere we could find that wasn’t invasive,” Ballard said.
The group made some of the posters and purchased the rest from an organization called Invisible Children, of which Ballard has been a follower for about a year. Ballard heard about Kony a month-and-a-half ago, she said, after watching an episode of Oprah featuring the leader of Invisible Children. According to the organization’s website, “Invisible Children uses film, creativity and social action to end the use of child soldiers in Joseph Kony’s rebel war and restore LRA-affected communities in East and Central Africa to peace and prosperity.”
“Joseph Kony is one of the world’s worst criminals — we want to get his name out there and spread awareness, not only in our country, but all over the world. He’s been considered as bad or worse than Adolf Hitler — as far as criminals go in taking over,” Ballard said. “We want to get our government and our policy leaders aware so they can help the Ugandan and African troops to get him out of the battlefield.”
Ballard explained that not many people have heard of Kony, and the aim of the posters is to get people curious enough about who he is so they can Google his name to find out more.
“I’ve tried to talk to people about him, but nobody has heard of him,” she said, mentioning that word is also spreading through an Invisible Children video on the issue posted on Facebook. “The video has gone completely viral on Facebook and Twitter, and other social networks,” she said.
She added that Kony has been committing these crimes for about 26 years, and “they’ve always been trying to catch him, but never found him.”
This is the first campaign Ballard has been involved in, she said. Some of the posters had the Republican and Democrat party symbols, reading “Kony 2012: one thing we can all agree on,” Ballard said.
“For a long time, I’ve always known my goal or dream in life is to help others across the world,” she said. “I got involved to help children in Uganda and surrounding countries have better lives.”
She added that Kony’s actions are said to be part of his rebel message to the government about various issues.
“This all started over government issues in the U.S. and over there, for years,” she explained. “Our government changes every few years, but he hasn’t stopped — he’s continued to abduct children and invade people’s cities and homes.”
She said it saddens her to think of the number of children affected.
“In the states here, we have the right protection against this kind of stuff,” Ballard said. “But in places like third-world countries, they don’t have the protection or the resources they need to keep this from happening.”
Although the weather “took a wrong turn” late Friday night as the group plastered posters in rain and wind, and Saturday’s snow made the signs less visible, Ballard said that didn’t dampen her motivation.
“It’s something I take seriously, and I think everyone else should as well,” Ballard said. “It’s all a matter of numbers.”
Other ideas the group has for the future are more events to spread awareness — like free car washes in which signs are put up educating the public and talking with them about the issue.
“We want to do other events for the same reason,” Ballard said. “We’ll keep going until he’s stopped. His whole army needs to be stopped.”
