Jason Russell

Jason Russell is a peace maker!

After finishing a film degree at the University of Southern California, Jason felt that instead of backpacking through Europe he would visit countries in Africa renowned for genocide and try to make a difference in the world. So together with his 2 friends and a cheap video camera, he set off. When he arrived in Uganda he stumbled upon a ‘night commuter’ (an over night refugee camp for children) and found his worst nightmare. Child upon child slept on top of each other, so many that you could not see the floor. All of them had fled from their homes and searched for urban areas so that they would not be a victim to a man called Joseph Kony. Kony was the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, who stole children and made the boys soldiers and sold the girls as prostitutes.

Jason began talking to some of the children and heard stories of children being slit and the throat, being forced to slaughter their families as well as being forced to mutate other's faces. Jason realised that there would never, ever be any peace for the 30,000 children that had been forced into these horrible instances and he then decided that he would put a stop to this. He would prevent all of the innocent children throughout Uganda from being taken and treated like this. He would try to give all of those poor unfortunate souls peace. Jason decided he would fly back to America, talk to the government and let them take care of this massive situation that the rest of the world was oblivious to. He would be the voice of the screaming children that no one heard. He was very shocked when he found that the government refused the plea of the children, as they alleged that America doesn’t have the financial interest to invest in other countries struggles. Once hearing this Jason was furious and was determined to keep his promise. “So where to start?” he thought. Well, where’s a better place than what he knew and what he loved. Jason knew that if the citizens of America and the world heard about this they would be as determined to stop it as he was. So he then decided that by using all of his power he would give peace to the children of Uganda by filming a documentary and spreading awareness.

Jason worked for 9 years on this venture, spreading the word throughout the world. He had people from Sydney, Tokyo, San Diego and cities and villages from around the world protesting and spreading the word. Eventually the American government found that the right decision had been forced upon them as their nation united had managed to sway their judgment. The government sent soldiers over and together with the Ugandan soldiers they are trying to track down Kony.  Although Jason soon found out that if the people of America decided they didn't care about it then the soldiers would be withdrawn. So the fight was not over yet. Jason realised that by letting the whole Earth know about this, by making Kony famous he would have nowhere to hide. He then based the end of his documentary on this. 

Jason released his 9 years of work worth documentary on YouTube and by using today’s social networking systems he managed to let majority of the world (People living in rural and non-rural situations) hear about this devastating occurrence. Jason’s next move was to allow one day of this year (April 20th) where the whole world would go to sleep at night whilst the people who truly believed in stopping Kony would stay up and watch the sunrise and plaster every town and village in the entire world with posters about this horrible occurrence and then Kony will be famous, he will be stopped and peace will fall not only on Uganda but on the whole of Africa. This one man (Jason Russell) united the Earth for the sake of peace. He truly is a peacemaker.