DAILY LOBO new mexico
Elite cookies
friday
see page 4
April 20, 2012
The Independent Voice of UNM since 1895
NM youths join effort opposing child soldiering by Avicra Luckey
avicraluckey@gmail.com
Courtesy photo
Activists participating in “Cover the Night” will cover their cities with posters like this one tonight in an effort to raise awareness about Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda. The posters were created by Invisible Children, an organization dedicated to stopping the use of children as soldiers.
Tonight, Albuquerque activists participate in an international effort to stop the use of child soldiers in Africa. People all over the world will plaster their cities with posters to raise awareness about the violence and brutality in Uganda. But Andrea Quijada, executive director of Media Literacy Project in Albuquerque, said it will take more than posters to stop leaders like Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda. KONY 2012, a video produced by Invisible Children and filmmaker Jason Russell, calls for the capture and prosecution of Kony, who kidnaps children to serve in an anti-government militia group. The video urges political leaders and celebrities to help raise awareness about the issue. Russell became the subject of controversy when he was arrested in San Diego for allegedly yelling and disrupting traffic while naked, according to the Huffington Post. Critics have also accused Invisible Children of oversimplifying the situation in Uganda. Quijada said the video presents what she calls “the white-savior complex.” “It’s a way for white communities in particular to have a sense that somehow communities of color don’t know how to take care of themselves, haven’t created a sys-
tem by which to be self-sustaining and that they need the help of the white man,” she said. “Often if we look at who created the situations that many communities of color are in, it has been a result of racism, it has been a result of colonization.” The organization also failed to mention in its first video that Kony is no longer in Uganda. He fled to Sudan in 2005 and has not been back to the country since, according to CNN. The organization has also come under fire because only 32 percent of the group’s proceeds are used on the ground in Africa, according to Invisible Children’s financial reports.
“I just sat there and thought ‘I can’t just not do something about this’” ~Taylor Schum high schooler Among the millions who saw the video were two Albuquerque high school students, Taylor Schum, 15, and Madeleine Barr, 17. They said despite controversy surrounding the organization, they still decided to participate in tonight’s event “Cover the Night.” Schum started a Facebook group for the event and soon found many others, including one Barr started.
The two decided to combine their groups and now more than 1,800 people have RSVP-ed to participate in the “Cover the Night” festivities in Albuquerque. Participants will do volunteer projects in their own communities during the day, including a UNM campus cleanup. Those interested in participating can meet the group in front of the SUB at 4 p.m. Schum said she felt she had to do something to stop Joseph Kony after she viewed the video the first time. “It changed my life,” she said. “I just sat there and thought, ‘I can’t just not do something about this.’ I have to try to get people to care. I have to try to get people to watch the video.” CNM student Kaitlin Elizabeth Elias said she is an activist for the cause, and that it’s not about one race “saving” another race, it’s about humans standing up for the rights of one another. “It’s not because I myself am a white blonde girl,” she said. “It is because this is a human issue. Just because I live in a powerful and relatively safe country I believe that I have the human right … to advocate on behalf for the people who don’t have that right, no matter the color of their skin, no matter the color of my skin — it’s a human rights issue.”
For more information on on BOX: For more information “Cover “Cover the Night,” visit facebook. the Night,” com/AlbuquerqueKony visit facebook.com/AlbuquerqueKony
Students win contest with water-treatment system by Svetlana Ozden sozden@unm.edu
UNM’s Lobo Engineering team designed and built a water-treatment system that prepares murky seawater to be purified for drinking. The shipboard water pretreatment system set the record for the highest score in 22 years at the International Environmental Design Contest, the team said. The contest for solving technical environmental problems is hosted annually by NMSU’s Institute for Energy and the Environment (IEE). Team member Andrew Gomez said the team competed against 15 universities at NMSU on April 4 and won first place and a prize of $2,500, which the team will split evenly among the members. Teams in the competition chose one task from a list of six, and Gomez said his team chose the Green Reverse Osmosis Pretreatment task. “The judges were really impressed by our design because it was something that could actually be used to pretreat water on a ship,” he said. Gomez said the team’s design uses a filtration membrane to remove harmful particles from seawater. He said when the water exits the filtration system, it is free of particles and is ready for further processing, which is important because without pretreatment, reverse-osmosis membranes can become quickly spoiled. Gomez said the judges focused on originality, ease of use, reliability, affordability, innovation, cost and functionality. He said the team had to design and build a system that would last at least four months and could filter 30,000 gallons of water per day without using hazardous chemicals. “We really focused on meeting all of the criteria
see Engineering PAGE 2
Inside the
Daily Lobo volume 116
issue 142
Courtesy photo Chemical engineering students won first place for their seawater pretreatment system at NMSU’s International Environmental Design Contest. Left to right: team leader Craig Garcia and team members Zachariah Harris, Andrew Gomez, Stephen Clark and Peter Crowder.
Fresh start
Underdogs
See page 7
See page 9
TODAY
79 | 48