The Rescue; Cardiff, UK 2009

Saturday night I marched through Cardiff for the children soldiers abducted by Joseph Kony and the Lord's Resistant Army.

It was such a rewarding experience being able to be involved with Invisible Children in another country. I met lets of people from not only the U.K, but from around the world. It was great to see everyone together for the same cause.

We slept outside of Cardiff university, in the front lawn and even though it rained, it wasn't too bad because I learned how to say "goodnight baby" in Welsh, "Nos Da Baba" and how to make the "LL" sound (which involves hissing out of the sides of your mouth).

Anyways, made this video from the event. Please take a second to watch it!

Come to the Rescue; Invisible Children

Recently I have been finding more and more information out about Joseph Kony. For those of you not familiar with Kony, he is the head of the LRA (Lord's Resistant Army) in Uganda who has abducted over 20,000 children since the violence began back in 1987 (my birth year). That means each week of my life since I was born on February 14, 1987, about 18 children have been abducted and engaged into violent campaign.

The LRA is a self-proclaimed Christian group that are fighting for a biblical based established of government. They want the laws to be govern through the Ten Commandments, which makes complete sense considering that they are going around murdering innocent people...and forcing children to carrying guns...


Every night, children, priests, and volunteers from outlaying villages gather to hopefully prevent children from being kidnapped and taken by the LRA.

After much hard work, in August of 2006, the Uganda government and LRA agreed to peace talks. Unfortunately, this broke off by January of 2007. Joseph Kony and the LRA still manage to rally children and continue violence.


This Saturday, April 25th, I will be "abducted" in Cardiff, Wales, along with thousands of participants in 100 cities across the world. We will stay in Cardiff writing letters, creating art projects, and seeking out media attention in an effort to petition the US, European, Canadian, Mexican, and Australian governments to develop a strategy and support existing efforts to rescue Kony's child soldiers. I will stay "abducted" at the site until I am "rescued" - this requires a certain amount of media coverage as well as the attendance of a celebrity or political leaders.



















If you are interested in learning more about this effort and have 36 minutes to spare, watch this touching documentary about three guys from California who have dedicated their lives to the effort. Invisible Children presents





http://therescue.invisiblechildren.com/en/#/watch/

Leaving on a Midnight Train to... Holyhead?

Early on the morning of March 16th at 3:30 am Katie and I left for Saint Patrick's Day in Dublin!

My buddy Matt from Manchester offered to give us a ride to the train station so we wouldn't have to pay for a taxi. We were both exhausted, but andrelanine was pumping for Saint Patrick's Day and I couldn't fall asleep. But finally after riding the train for an hour (and some sleeping pills) I passed out, although that's not the best thing when you're on a train that has to transfer through Cardiff Central and Shrewsbury Station. I woke up one time and thought for sure that we had missed our stop. But we arrived in Holyhead, North Wales around 12 and we had time to explore before making our way to the ferry. Here are some pictures from the train journey and the town of Holyhead.