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Former UCSD student forms organization
to help young victims of Ugandan conflict
When he was just 19 and a student at UC San Diego, Laren Poole found himself in a small town in Northern Uganda. On his first night there, hundreds of small children emerged from the countryside and flooded the city, sleeping in the streets. They were fleeing the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army, which raided villages to kidnap boys and turn them into child soldiers. Poole had come to Africa with two friends in the spring of 2003 to make a movie. They were looking for a story. That night, they knew they had found it. When they got back to the United States, they used their footage to create a documentary titled “Invisible Children.” Poole, now 26, is the co-founder of a nonprofit organization named after the movie, which has recently grabbed the national spotlight with nationwide events featuring celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey. More