This week 10 brave students will sleep outside the UBC Bookstore as part of 5 Days for the Homeless, a yearly campaign that takes place in universities across the country. From Sunday March 11th at 5pm to Friday March 16th at 5pm will sacrifice basic necessities such as food (unless donated), access to fund and showers. Not only are they embarking on this journey to personally understand the daily trials and tribulations of what homelessness entails, but also to raise awareness of the stigma surrounding homelessness.
I am personally grateful for having been raised with parents that explained homelessness holistically. I am originally from Latin America, and I remember that one of my earliest encounters with homelessness was in Colombia. I remember driving by a man lying on the concrete floor. I was six, and I hadn’t quite grasped why a man would possibly be lying on the ground. I remember asking my mother why he was lying there, on the pavement and, almost on the road? From the little I remember the answer was complicated; there could be many reasons why the man had no home. She told me that he could be mentally ill, that maybe he had no family to help him, that perhaps he was poor and didn’t know how to get out of poverty. Since that moment I have thought of homelessness as an issue that has to be understood not through the simplistic idea that it results from “laziness,” but as a complicated issue resulting from a multitude of factors. Kudos to the engaged students who have decided to bring this issue at the forefront on campus and strive to depict the complexities surrounding homelessness.
You’re invited to stop by, have a chat, ask some questions, and donate some healthy foods to 5 Days. You can also find out more about their journey by following their blog. For more information about 5 Days for the Homeless at UBC, click here.
On Kony 2012: The Visible Victims Speak: Considering that Kony 2012 — the most viral video in Internet history — exploits the suffering of northern Ugandans to raise money, Victor Ochen, a victim of the Lord’s Resistance Army and a founder of the nonprofit African Youth Initiative Network (AYINET), thought it only right that they should get to see it too.
Ochen traveled to the city of Lira, where he and his NGO set up a makeshift outdoor theater so locals could watch Invisible Children’s much-discussed fundraising campaign, and decide for themselves if it helps or hurts.
According to a statement released by AYINET, over 35,000 people attended the screening, many of whom rode in on bikes from neighboring villages. Additionally, some two million northern Uganda residents tuned in to a live broadcast of the audio aired simultaneously on five FM radio stations.
People I spoke to anticipated seeing a video that showed the world the terrible atrocities that they had suffered during the conflict, and the ongoing struggles they still face trying to rebuild their lives after two lost decades.
The audience was at first puzzled to see the narrative lead by an American man – Jason Russell – and his young son.
Towards the end of the film, the mood turned more to anger at what many people saw as a foreign, inaccurate account that belittled and commercialised their suffering, as the film promotes Kony bracelets and other fundraising merchandise, with the aim of making Kony infamous.
A woman Webb spoke with afterwards compared IC’s approach of selling products with Kony’s image to “selling Osama Bin Laden paraphernalia post 9/11,” which she felt would be offensive to many Americans, irrespective of how “well-intentioned” the fundraising campaign was.
Last night’s screening was AYINET’s first and last. It announced this morning that it had suspended further screenings of Kony 2012 in light of the outrage it caused. Wrote Ochen: “It was very hurtful for victims and their families to see posters, bracelets and t-shirts, all looking like a slick marketing campaign, promoting the person most responsible for their shattered lives.”
“Why give such criminals celebrity status?” asked people in attendance, according to AYINET. “Why not make the plight of the victims and the war-ravaged communities, people whose sufferings are real and visible, the focus of a campaign to help?”
I am personally grateful for having been raised with parents that explained homelessness holistically. I am originally from Latin America, and I remember that one of my earliest encounters with homelessness was in Colombia. I remember driving by a man lying on the concrete floor. I was six, and I hadn’t quite grasped why a man would possibly be lying on the ground. I remember asking my mother why he was lying there, on the pavement and, almost on the road? From the little I remember the answer was complicated; there could be many reasons why the man had no home. She told me that he could be mentally ill, that maybe he had no family to help him, that perhaps he was poor and didn’t know how to get out of poverty. Since that moment I have thought of homelessness as an issue that has to be understood not through the simplistic idea that it results from “laziness,” but as a complicated issue resulting from a multitude of factors. Kudos to the engaged students who have decided to bring this issue at the forefront on campus and strive to depict the complexities surrounding homelessness.
