Fueled with caffeine, pizza and youthful idealism, more than 300 West Aurora High School students spent Saturday night on the football field to raise
money for war victims in Africa. The teens spent most of the night burning off their excess energy in a carnival atmosphere of games and activities, but their motive for coming out was deadly serious. The fundraiser supports the international aid group Invisible Children, which focuses on war-battered northern Uganda. Although now somewhat pacified, the area has been battered in a two-decade civil war spawned by a rebel group that filled its ranks by abducting young children to serve as soldiers and slaves. Many children fled their rural homes every night to hide in town centers to escape the kidnappers. Many more fled with their families to refugee camps, where about 1 million people still live today. West High’s connection to the long-running catastrophe began four years ago, when history teachers Christina Tammen and Joe Sustersic showed their classes a documentary produced by Invisible Children.
After the students saw how different their lives could have been if they’d been born in a town along the White Nile rather than the Fox River, a few were inspired to start a club to raise money for their peers in northern Uganda.