Kony, charity or not?

If you know me you know I research absolutely everything I spend money on. I look for a bargain but will pay the money if it is needed. I have always been a huge contributor to charities in monetary form or helping out personally any way I can. There is a trend going on, a trend which intrigued me. Normally theses things pass me by but I decided to do some research. My Business studies and economics A-levels taught me where to research business accounts and how to look in the right place. It showed me how to dig a little deeper into what people do. The reason why this charity sparked a light in my research brain was because its based in Africa, a good proportion of our family lived there for many years and in fact my father was brought up there for most of his life. I know a little, not a lot ut enough to know who is talking out of their arse and who has a grasp of the politics over there. I had a rare night to myself last night so started some digging. I honestly wanted to stay as far away as possible from KONY 2012, the latest fauxtivist fad sweeping the web (remember “change your Facebook profile pic to stop child abuse”?), but you clearly won’t stop sending me that damn video until I say something about it, so here goes: Stop sending me that video. The organization behind Kony 2012 ,Invisible Children Inc. ,is an extremely shady nonprofit that has been called ”misleading,” “naive,” and “dangerous” by a Yale political science professor, and has been accused by Foreign office manipulating facts for strategic purposes.” They have also been criticized by the Better Business Bureau for refusing to provide information necessary to determine if IC meets the Bureau’s standards. Additionally, IC has a low two-star rating in accountability from Charity Navigator because they won’t let their financials be independently audited. That’s not a good thing. In fact, it’s a very bad thing, and should make you immediately pause and reflect on where the money you’re sending them is going. By IC’s own admission, only 31% of all the funds they receive go toward actually helping anyone . The rest go to line the pockets of the three people in charge of the organization, to pay for their travel expenses (over $1 million in the last year alone) and to fund their filmmaking business (also over a million) — which is quite an effective way to make more money, as clearly illustrated by the fact that so many can’t seem to stop forwarding their well-engineered emotional blackmail to everyone they’ve ever known. And as far as what they do with that money: The group is in favor of direct military intervention, and their money supports the Ugandan government’s army and various other military forces. Here’s a photo of the founders of Invisible Children posing with weapons and personnel of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. Both the Ugandan army and Sudan People’s Liberation Army are riddled with accusations of rape and looting, but Invisible Children defends them, arguing that the Ugandan army is “better equipped than that of any of the other affected countries”, although Kony is no longer active in Uganda and hasn’t been since 2006 by their own admission. These books each refer to the rape and sexual assault that are perennial issues with the UPDF, the military group Invisible Children is defending. Let’s not get our lines crossed: The Lord’s Resistance Army is bad news. And Joseph Kony is a very bad man, and needs to be stopped. But propping up Uganda’s decades-old dictatorship and its military arm, which has been accused by the UN of committing unspeakable atrocities and itself facilitated the recruitment of child soldiers, is not the way to go about it. The United States is already plenty involved in helping rout Kony and his band of psycho sycophants. Kony is on the run, having been pushed out of Uganda, and it’s likely he will soon be caught, if he isn’t already dead. But killing Kony won’t fix anything, just as killing Osama bin Laden didn’t end terrorism. Placing the blame for all of central Africa’s woes on Kony — even as a starting point — will only imperil many more people than are already in danger. Sending money to a nonprofit that wants to muck things up by dousing the flames with fuel is not helping. Want to help? Really want to help? Send your money to nonprofits that are putting more than 31% toward rebuilding the region’s medical and educational infrastructure, so that former child soldiers have something worth coming home to. The bottom line is, research your causes thoroughly. Don’t just forward a random video to a stranger because a mass murderer makes a five-year-old “sad.” Learn a little bit about the complexities of the region’s ongoing strife before advocating for direct military intervention. There is no black and white in the world. And going about solving important problems like there is just serves to make all those equally troubling shades of gray invisible. If you want to give money to a charity, give it to St Georges hospital. I can personally guarantee everything you get wont go to an African dictator and will go to helping sick people to get better.