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Kony fever hits York!

March 7th, 2012
Kony 2012 poster ©Kony2012; Image Credit: Kony2012

The non-profit company, Invisible Children, Inc. released a video on March 5th, 2012 to start their "Cover the Night" campaign. The aim of the campaign is to raise awareness and support for the arrest of Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in central Africa.

The "Cover the Night" campaign involves people either buying or printing off posters and covering the area they live in with them during the night on April 20th, 2012.

Invisible Children, Inc. hope that the volume of people getting involved in this will stop the US government from pulling out US forces which were deployed to Uganda on October 20th, 2011.

The organisers underestimated the support, their goal for the video was 500,000 shares and they have already received 1.5 million views on vimeo version alone, and is now rising at an exponential rate.

The film has spread virally and many Facebook events and groups have been popping up. The Kony 2012 York Facebook Group gained an impressive 112 members within the first hour of being set up at around midnight on March 6, 2012.

The Facebook event has over 1000 people invited within the first half an hour. Many of the events warn that this is not an excuse for a riots or vandalism.

York student, Ross Whiting said: "it's quite interesting to see a viral that is genuinely good for a change," whilst fellow student James Ellis added: "The Kony issue has been left for so many years it's a disgrace. Getting involved in this isn't only the most enthusiastic I've been over anything in a long time; it's also the right thing to do."