The town of Gulu, Uganda, is some 9,300 miles from UC Davis. For many students, those miles may as well be infinite, for all the thought given to that small country in east Africa.

But as Katie Rystrom knows, the power of film can bridge such distances in a heartbeat, bringing Davis students front row, center, to the plight of children in northern Uganda.

Rystrom, a senior international relations and Italian major, founded the UC Davis chapter of Invisible Children, a student-grass-roots effort to raise awareness and funds to help solve the ongoing humanitarian crisis in northern Uganda.

The group's primary tool is the documentary Invisible Children, which was shown on campus at several screenings during the fall quarter. The film tells the story of Uganda's "night commuters," the thousands of children who walk miles to the town of Gulu every single night, simply looking for a safe place to sleep.

'Child soldiers'

These children face the danger of being kidnapped by the Lord's Resistance Army, or LRA, a militant group that is composed predominantly of abducted child soldiers. Once seized, these children are forced to commit terrifying acts of violence.

Rystrom said that Invisible Children stirred her to action unlike any other documentary because of a key reason: "Young people made it."

Invisible Children is the work of three college students from San Diego who left their suburban neighborhoods in spring 2003 and traveled to Africa completely independent of any organization. They were simply looking for a story to film, and they found it in Gulu.

The filmmakers introduce viewers to two groups of invisible children. Some are the night commuters. On the concrete floor of a hospital and the bare ground of bus parks, they pack together by the hundreds, seeking the perceived safety of sheer numbers. They are the lucky ones.

The other group of invisible children documented in the film are abducted, often by child soldiers no older than themselves. From the outset, they are trained to kill. They are subjected to a gamut of terrors, and are often forced to kill their parents or older siblings. Young girls become the "wives" or sex slaves of militant officials and bear their children.

After Rystrom first saw Invisible Children at her Bible study group, she could not sleep. "I'd wake up in the middle of the night and write ideas in my journal," she said. Those ideas included awakening the global consciousness of UC Davis and raising money to help the children of Uganda.

Rystrom's enthusiasm spread to her housemates, who helped form the core of the local chapter of Invisible Children. The group has tried to show the film to as many of their fellow students as possible. At a recent screening, students watched in stunned silence, many of them just now learning of the horrors that the youth of northern Uganda have endured for 20 years.

Rystrom and her fellow group members hope that students will feel empowered after watching the film. Like the young filmmakers from San Diego, she says of the UC Davis group, "We can actually do something to help this situation stop."

Moradwun Adejunmobi, director of African American and African Studies at UC Davis, says there are many complex problems underlying the situation in Uganda, and none has an easy solution. However, she says, the aid has definite impact:

"It can provide protection for the kids who have not been abducted, whose situation is currently very dangerous. And it can provide assistance for rehabilitating the men and women who escape from the LRA, and who have gone through a traumatic experience," said Adejunmobi.

The local chapter has raised money through making and selling bracelets that bear the name of an Invisible Child. The group also sponsored an awareness week leading up to a Dec. 3 fundraising run called "Let's Make Them Visible."

The efforts of some 200 runners from UC Davis, each sporting the name of a Ugandan child, helped raise more than $11,000 for the El Cajon, Calif.,-based organization. Members of Invisible Children are currently working in Uganda to build a House of Hope, "a place of education, rehabilitation, and ultimate peace for all Ugandans affected by the war."

Rystrom hopes that the money they raise "will be very tangible in the lives of these kids. Nine dollars can send an African child to school for a year. I spent $10 on lunch yesterday." Rystrom's summer in South Africa working with AIDS orphans opened her eyes to how much she and her American peers truly have to give.

Her efforts "started as a thought. It was just a shot in the dark." Now she hopes others who learn about the children of Uganda will ask themselves the same question she once pondered: "If I have the means to do something, why wouldn't I?"

For more information, see www.ucdavis.edu/spotlight/1205/uganda_qa.html.

UC Davis News Service intern Erin Loury is a third-year student, majoring in the biological sciences.