First Creepy-People-In-The-City Story. The First of Many, Apparently.

"False Livery Cab Driver Arrested on Rape Charge"
by Vivekananda Nemana
for the Washington Square News, published February 25, 2008.

Note: When reporting this I realized for the first time exactly how competitive New York news can be. I had nothing against the Daily News, the New York Post, the Gothamist, and the New York Times. Ah, the frustrations of an inexperienced WSN journalist!

Thanks to two women, New Yorkers now have one less thing to worry about. 

Monica Maneiro, a 23-year-old employee at Scores West, a gentleman's bar in Chelsea, was partly responsible for last Sunday's arrest of Torkieh Sadageh, a 28-year-old man who allegedly posed as a livery cab driver and attempted to rape Maneiro and another woman outside nightspots in Chelsea. His arrest is now thought to be related to two similar incidences in the Lower East Side last September and October. Both neighborhoods are frequented by NYU students. 

Sadageh has been charged with the rape of the other woman on the same night. 

Maneiro alleged that after she had gotten into the fake livery cab after work, around 4 a.m. on Sunday morning, Sadageh pulled over and forced himself on top of her. She escaped from the vehicle and called 911 to report his license plate number. 

"I didn't really fight back too much because if I would have he probably would have gotten more upset," Maneiro said in a statement to the press. 

The other woman was not so lucky. According to press reports, he picked her and her three friends up minutes after the first incident. She said that after he had dropped her friends off, he raped her in the back seat. She also took down his plate number, which connected the two attacks. 

According to news sources, Sadageh admitted to assaulting Maneiro but denied raping the other woman. He was arrested Sunday night outside his home in Brooklyn. 

"They were drunk women. This was an accusation. Nothing is rape," he shouted to reporters while being escorted to a police vehicle in East Harlem. 

Sadageh is currently in the custody of the New York City Department of Corrections. 

Police also suspect Sadageh is connected to the livery cab sexual assaults of women outside of The Box bar in the Lower East Side last fall. Sadageh initially admitted to those attacks but later recanted his statement. 

NYU Public Safety Vice President Jules Martin said there are measures students can take to help avoid situations like these. 

"At NYU we strongly suggest to all students to use the 'buddy system' when navigating the streets of New York - regardless of the neighborhood, especially late at night or early morning," he wrote in an e-mail. 

Martin noted the importance of traveling on well-lit streets, using yellow taxis when possible and calling Public Safety and the Wellness Exchange in addition to 911 when victimized in an attack. 

But NYU students said that they aren't too concerned with safety. 

"I kind of just assume I'm safe," CAS sophomore Meg Coslett said. "If you go out, you're not really worrying about being safe, you just care about getting home."

Missing NYU Alum

"Alum missing from ski town" 
By Vivekananda Nemana
For the Washington Square News, published February 19, 2008 

People are still on the lookout for Alphonse "Mike" Barbiere, a former NYU student who went missing last week in the ski resort town of Breckenridge, Colo. 

Barbiere, a New Jersey native, was last seen with his friends at Cecilia's Martini bar on Feb. 8. He left at 1:18 a.m. and has not been seen since. Police reports say that Barbiere walked in the opposite direction from his rented condominium, despite a warning from a friend that he was going in the wrong direction.? 

The Barbiere family and the Breckenridge Police initiated an exhaustive search the next day. Assistant police chief Greg Morrison said up to 60 members of the search and rescue team with three trained dogs searched the area on Feb. 9 and Feb. 10. 

Barbiere did not tell his friends or anyone else where he was going, and no evidence was found on his trail. To further complicate matters, Barbiere left his phone at the condo, family members said. 

Large amounts of snow and freezing weather in the Breckenridge area could make returning home difficult. 

"People forget that if you step off the beaten path, you can be waist deep in snow," said Jeff Cox, owner of Cecila's Martini bar. "And if you don't know how to handle yourself in those conditions, you can be in trouble." 

According to experts, a person dressed as lightly as Barbiere was can barely last an hour before turning hypothermic. 

But Barbiere's relatives think it is unlikely that he is lost in the cold. 

"We believe that Mike is resourceful; he's smart, he's bright, he's any one of those things," said Annie Madigan, who has been friends with Barbiere since childhood. "We don't think he would just sit in the snow and give up. He's a fighter."? 

Barbiere transferred from Wake Forest University to the Paul McGhee division of SCPS. He graduated last May with an honors degree in economics and worked as a commodities trader afterwards. 

Although search and rescue operations have been stopped, the family has offered a $10,000 reward to anyone with information leading to his discovery. 

The family has hired a private investigator to look into the case and is focusing on getting the word out about Barbiere. Friends have created a website devoted to the cause, as well as Facebook and MySpace groups. 

"The best way to find Mike is for people to be talking about it," said Barbiere's mother, Chris. 

Madigan said friends and family are hopeful about Barbiere's return. 

"He's 23 and very capable," she said. "This isn't the type of challenge he couldn't do."

End of the Electoral College? (Picked up by CBS News!)

"ELECTION 2008: States Reject the Electoral College"
By Vivekananda Nemana and Todd Sloves
For the Washington Square News, published on February 14, 2008. 

Note: I worked on this article about the National Popular Vote together with Todd, who is an excellent writer and reporter...certainly much better than I am. It's an interesting topic, good enough for CBSNews.com to put it on their website (via U-Wire)! Made me month, that did. Also, this was Debbie Chung's national news debut. 

The way we elect our president may be changing. 

State legislators around the country are introducing the National Popular Vote law to change how their states allocate votes in the Electoral College. Currently, this is done by a winner-take-all system, in which the candidate with the most votes in a state takes all that state's electoral votes. But in states that adopt the NPV law, those votes will go to the candidate who wins the most popular votes nationally, regardless of his or her success at the state level. 

Supporters of the NPV say the winner-take-all system grants an unfair advantage to voters in larger states with more electoral votes. 

"A citizen in California has about three times the influence of a citizen in Wyoming, or some other smaller state, in impacting the election of the president," said Steven Brams, a professor of politics at NYU and a supporter of the NPV. 

If the winner-take-all system is replaced by the NPV law, the influence of every voter would be equal. 

"All voters would be treated the same, wherever they lived," he said. "It nullifies this bias [and] supports the egalitarian principle of one-person, one-vote." 

According to the Constitution, the Electoral College officially chooses the president. Each state, however, has the power to pass laws that decide on what basis its electors will cast their votes. Because the law encourages states to allot their votes based on the national majority, it becomes effective once states with a collective majority of electoral votes pass the law. 

Last month, New Jersey Gov. John Corzine signed the NPV into law, making it the second state to adopt the new system. 

The other NPV state, Maryland, enacted the bill last April. Illinois and Hawaii are the next states in which the bill will be decided, and in both states the bills are awaiting the respective governor's signature. 

In New York, the NPV bill is making its way up the ranks. A spokesman for New York State Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, who co-sponsored the bill, said it is still in committee. "People have been looking to circumvent the Electoral College ever since the 1800s," the spokesman said. He cited the 2000 presidential election as the crucial factor in reforming the current system. A spokeswoman for Maryland's Speaker of the House Michael E. Busch also said that the controversial election was the catalyst in the bill's success. 

There is, however, opposition to the bill's passage. In 2006, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill after it passed in both Houses of the California legislature. Schwarzenegger said that the bill "disregards the will of the majority of people voting for the office of President," specifically citing the will of most Californians. 

Students at NYU said they were optimistic about the NPV. 

Debbie Chung, a New Jersey sophomore majoring in politics, thinks it'll be best for both her home state and the rest of the country. 

"Because New Jersey is considered a Democratic state, [its] issues tend to get ignored," she said. "I think this is good because it brings the candidates' focus back to where it affects the most people, instead of small state-specific interests."

Chapter Two: Enter the College Newspaper of Dreams

"Scientists unravel DNA's role in life" 
By Vivekananda Nemana
For the Washington Square News, published on February 5, 2008.

Note: This was the first article I wrote for the Washington Square News before I started staffing there. It got edited the shit out of, but it was my first real journalism experience. Sorry if this is terribly self-indulgent and painful to read. I'll write something a little more interesting as soon as I finish documenting everything I've published. 

Scientists first began mapping DNA in the 1980s to learn more about life's inner workings. 

But to unravel DNA's role in creating life, scientists need to understand how genes help form living organisms - a task undertaken by NYU professors Richard Bonneau and Nitin Baliga. 

The two researchers have mapped the regulatory circuit that controls a tiny organism that can survive in extreme environments, Halobacterium salinarum. The study is part of an emerging field called systems biology, which studies the complex interactions within entire biological systems. 

NYU Professors Richard Bonneau and Nitin Baliga collaborated with
researchers to create a systems biology model (WSN File Photo).

Bonneau is an assistant professor of biology at NYU's Center for Genomics and Systems Biology and the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, and Baliga is a researcher from the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle. 

Along with researchers from the University of Maryland, Vanderbilt University and the University of Washington, Bonneau and Baliga studied the control circuit of Halobacterium for over four years. 

They created a model that maps how the organism would adapt when forced into a new environment. In the end, their model accurately predicted how over 85 percent of the genome responded to changes over time, a milestone level of accuracy in predicting cellular changes. 

Unlike older studies that only focus on one gene at a time, systems biology experiments simultaneously monitor all the genes in the genome, an organism's genetic material. This allows researchers to examine the connections between biological control circuits: the interactions among genes that form an organism's biological processes. 

Systems biology is currently examining how genetic building blocks are combined to make the final product - life. 

According to Bonneau, the practical advantage of understanding biological systems is that it opens doors for new forms of bioengineering, such as the biosynthesis of pharmaceuticals and the bioremediation of wastes. 

"In the end, understanding the circuits which control the cell systems and subsystems is a prerequisite for bioengineering," Bonneau said. "Once you figure out the circuit, you can move on to engineer the circuit to produce new things." 

Bonneau is assembling a team of students to work with him during the summer. 

"It's just the beginning," he said. "Working with [Dr. Baliga] has been a great collaboration, and we're going to continue it well into the future."

Kenya Has a Crisis, and I Still Can't Write Right.

"A Vote for Humanity: Kenya's Electoral Crisis" 
by Vivekananda Nemana
For Crossings Magazine, published on January 9, 2008. 

If you've done something wrong, how much should your family suffer for it? Your community? What about your entire country? 

That's exactly the question that faced Kenya as the country plunged into violent turmoil after disputed presidential elections in the last week of December 2007. The incumbent president Mwai Kibaki, who emerged victorious by a dubiously slight margin, refused to relinquish his title. Despite widespread evidence of electoral fraud, Mr. Kibaki maintains that he is the rightful leader of Kenya. This self-serving preservation of power sparked a firestorm of riots and violence, and generated a humanitarian disaster in what was one of Africa's most stable and developed countries. In the process, hundreds of innocent lives were lost and hundreds of thousands of innocent livelihoods were destroyed, and the nation has been ripped apart at the seams. 

The two candidates belonged to two separate tribes, the Kikuyu and the Luo. Although less than 25 percent of the population is Kikuyu, the tribe has enjoyed control of the government and economy since Kenya's independence in 1963, and a Luo political victory would have great symbolic value for the Kenyan people. So when Mr. Kibaki, a Kikuyu, claimed an apparently unfair victory over Raila Odinga, the Luo opposition leader, he inadvertently opened a floodgate of bitterness against Kikuyus, and left deep cuts in the inter-tribal harmony. 

And who must pay the price? The Kenyan people. The post-electoral period saw a wave of violence in which an estimated 500 people were killed by early January, mostly Kikuyus. In the worst example of ethnic rage, an army of Luo thugs sealed and set afire a church filled with Kikuyu refugees, many of them women and children, in the Rift Valley province, a Luo stronghold. The New Year's Day massacre claimed at least 50 lives and injured countless more. The United Nations estimated that over 180,000 civilians are displaced in a country that traditionally accepts, not creates, refugees. To add to the chaos, mass lootings are occurring across the country, causing millions of dollars worth of property damage daily, and bringing the Kenyan economy to its knees. Vital supplies such as food and fuel have become scarce, creating long lines at the few remaining supermarkets, and inflation rates have galloped. Armed men by roadblocks and machete-wielding militias now stalk a land that was once a model for African development. 

The atrocities, of course, extend to both sides. Kikuyu revenge groups have sprung up, seeking redemption for the violence against their tribe but really just brutalizing innocent Luo and other tribesmen. To make things even worse, the government has outlawed protesting and political broadcasting, two crucial rights, setting off brawls between police and protesters in Nairobi and other cities. 

Yet in spite of all the unease, a common opinion prevails among the Kenyan people and cuts across all tribal lines: if the politicians want it, the violence can end. In the turbulent week following the disputed elections, the Kenyan government repeatedly brushed off concerns by internal and international sources that election fraud has occurred. It rebuffed calls by many watchdogs, including the Kenyan attorney general, the United Nations, and the Human Rights Watch, for an independent investigation of the vote tabulations in order to avert further violence (though it escapes this writer as to why an investigation should present a problem if there really was no fraud like the government claims). And in the face of continuing chaos and mounting evidence of fraud, Mr. Kibuki's regime denied international diplomatic aid, saying that the situation was an "internal crisis" which they would handle. On the other hand, the opposition, led by Mr. Odinga, demanded nothing less than a recount, and cited Kikuyu oppression and power- mongering as the driving force behind election fraud. 

The stubborn refusal of either the government or the opposition to relax their stances and negotiate in the period immediately following the election fueled the bloodshed in Kenya. By all counts, Kenya is a stable and prosperous country in which such an upheaval should have never happened. But the greed of corrupt politicians, and their incompetence in looking past their own ambitions for the larger needs of the nation, set off a time bomb that sent the whole country up in flames. And it is a fire that will not be easy to extinguish. 

The good news is that in the most recent developments the Kenyan turmoil appears to ebb. Fewer people are being killed daily, families are returning to their homes, inflation is decreasing, and politicians are finally becoming open to negotiations. But the damage has already been done; deep lines of ethnic conflict have been drawn, like a hideous scar across the mosaic of Kenyan tribes. 

This is a universal theme in humanitarian crises across the world. A small powerful elite, in pursuing self-serving gains such as political power, sends shockwaves of disarray across the population, causing millions of people to suffer and severely limiting the potential of the nation. Power may be the most addictive drug, but leaders, Kenyan ones included, should nevertheless show that they're worth their salt by making sure that at least sometimes their followers don't have to suffer in order to protect their own interests. That cures half of the headache.

Hours of Underpaid Grunt Work at the AIDS Clinic Really Did Pay Off.

"The Human Face of AIDS"
by Vivekananda Nemana
For Crossings Magazine, published on December 10, 2007. 

Working in an AIDS clinic in New York last summer introduced me to a world of issues that I normally wouldn't ever think of at home in Suburbia, America. It was my first personal exposure to the disease. I learned a lot about what it's like to live with HIV, about the medications, the bills, the insurance hassles, and the precautions patients have to take. I also learned that most AIDS patients on Anti-Retroviral drugs (ARVs) look and behave perfectly normal, and try to lead relatively normal lives. 

But soon after starting my post at the clinic, I went out to dinner with some new neighbors from the Midwest, and the topic of my employment came up. When I mentioned that I worked at an AIDS clinic, a look of horror-mingled-with-disgust crossed one girl's face, and she actually leaned away from me, as if I were an incarnation of the disease itself. I don't even have the condition; I only happen to work around people who do. Did she expect the virus to be covering my body and casually float into her mashed potatoes? 

It was then that I came to the realization that in New York we actually live in a bubble, a bubble of open-mindedness. In the largely left-wing city, especially in the NYU/Greenwich Village area, homosexuality is overwhelmingly tolerated and the issue of AIDS is pretty well understood; I've never met anyone living in New York who was taken aback by the fact that I worked in the AIDS clinic. So it's not hard to become deluded that everyone shares this mentality, that most everybody in the world realizes the difficulties that AIDS patients face and wants to help them overcome their struggle. That, unfortunately, is far from the case. 

In light of World AIDS Day, which took place on December 1, I'd like to take a look at where the AIDS issue stands today. There are currently an estimated 33.2 million people living with the disease worldwide, and roughly 3 million die each year due to AIDS-related causes, but we already hear a lot about the numbers and statistics. Here's another bone to gnaw on: for all those unfortunately diagnosed, what is life like? Not just their physical complications, but how do their respective societies see them? 

The reality is that the awareness initiatives such as those put forth on World AIDS day are designed to make us pity the victims of the HIV virus. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but inside our bubble of open-mindedness, it's easy to assume that everybody else feels the same way. How could you not muster up an ounce of sympathy for the unfortunate casualty of an incurable illness? But massive misconceptions still exist about the way HIV is transmitted. AIDS is still shunned by mainstream society as a result of "perverted" behavior such as sex working. These stigmas result in unabated discrimination against HIV/AIDS patients. 

At the clinic, it was relatively common to hear about cases where patients are denied full insurance benefits or face issues with their employers because of their condition. A major reason for this is that in the United States, and elsewhere, many people do not realize that HIV is transmitted only through bodily fluids, and that the virus is killed when exposed to air. So the chances of contracting HIV from a co-worker are slim to none. Moreover, because a large proportion of AIDS patients are homosexual, people often couple their biases against AIDS patients with their prejudices against homosexuals. 

If such discrimination is happening in Greenwich Village, to some of the wealthiest people in one of the wealthiest parts of the world, then how much worse off is a poor HIV-inflicted person in an underdeveloped country, in a situation where survival is difficult to begin with? In these countries, stigmatization and misconceptions about HIV transmission are more severe. The introduction of the United Nation's report on HIV and AIDS-related discrimination in India begins by saying, "In India, as elsewhere, AIDS is perceived as a disease of the 'others' -of people living on the margins of society, whose lifestyles are considered 'perverted' and 'sinful'...People living with HIV and AIDS continue to be burdened by poor care and inadequate services, while those with the power to help do little to make the situation better." In China, according to a recently published article by Reuters, society's discrimination against HIV infected people "impede[s] the effectiveness of HIV and AIDS prevention efforts." 

What happens when such discrimination and ostracism exists is that people who test HIV-positive are marginalized as second-class citizens. Then the patients and their loved ones face the possibility of losing their jobs, social statuses and livelihoods, and in some cases are even victims of physical abuse. Ostracism is one of the worst punishments, because its victims are rendered unable to function as part of the society in which they live. They are marginalized to the extent that they lose their identity and sense of self-worth. In countries like the United States, organizations and awareness groups work to prevent this from fully occurring, but these movements are, after all, a luxury for the rich. 

Moreover, in many countries the stigmatization of the HIV-afflicted as "sinful" provides an excuse to not properly develop healthcare and resources for patients. By blaming certain groups for the disease, governments can thus excuse themselves from the obligation to care for the disease's victims. Even worse, people who are at risk for being HIV-positive are less likely to get tested from fear of ostracism and loss of well-being, and HIV-sufferers are "developing full-blown AIDS due to resistance to anti-retroviral drugs and a reluctance to speak out," according to the Reuters article. 

People have to know that AIDS is not spread by an individual or a specific group, but rather by society's reluctance to accept the problem as a crisis that needs to be solved. They have to know that brushing off HIV as a "disease of the sinful" only aggravates the problem, and that it needs to be de-stigmatized in order to make any progress. They have to know that overcoming prejudices and accepting HIV patients as a part of society is the best path to making AIDS a curable disease.

First Published Piece, Ever.

"So What Exactly Are Kids Doing These Days?"  
by Vivekananda Nemana
For Crossings Magazine, published on November 20, 2007. 

Note: This was written way back when I first started to flirt with the idea of journalism. I was young and still  involved in the whole human rights scene (it's interesting to see how different my writing was back then). And I desperately wanted to get published. One day a certain Jorge Vargas came along, saying he was the Editor-in-Chief of a small online magazine and that he'd like someone to write a feature about Child(Not)Soldier, a club I helped to start. Perhaps it wasn't ethical for me to write about a club I was a founding member of, but it was a welcome twist of fate.  Today, I am the senior writer for Crossings' Human Rights department and assistant editor of their Arts section. 

Picture yourself as you are right now. Perhaps you're wearing comfortable designer clothing while sitting in a comfortable, air-conditioned, and well-lit bedroom, most likely in front of a relatively new computer, in a comfortable area of town that's dependably patrolled by the police. If so, then smile, because I'll bet that you're comfortable. 

Now, imagine that the comfortable designer outfit you have on is instead an old, battered, uncomfortable set of clothes handed down to you by the government or an aid worker. Imagine that your entire wardrobe actually consisted of just that and maybe another similar set. Take the nice, comfortable building you're in and exchange it with a dilapidated shack or an overcrowded, disease-infested refugee camp in a war-devastated country. Don't even think about frivolities such as air-conditioning and proper electricity. And you've never seen a computer or sent a text message in your life. Hungry? Don't worry...maybe you'll be lucky enough to eat again tomorrow. And forget about the police...they've been replaced by a dangerous rebel group looking to kidnap you and force you to kill. 

My question to you is, what next? How do you live when staying alive is priority number one? What happens to your dreams? 

Audience members were pressed to ask themselves these questions during Invisible Children's visit to New York University on Monday, October 15, hosted by the campus group Child(Not)Soldier. Invisible Children, an organization dedicated to improving the situation of children afflicted by civil war in Northern Uganda, screened their documentaries Invisible Children and Black is for Sunday. Representatives from Invisible Children and Child(Not)Soldier also gave speeches about the situation of children in Northern Uganda and other war-torn areas, and about "Schools for Schools," an initiative to raise money for these children's education. The event was organized to spread awareness about the issue of child soldiers, a serious problem in Northern Uganda, as children are often kidnapped from their homes by rebels and forced to fight in the war. 

Invisible Children, filmed in 2003 by the organization of the same name, details the experience of three Californian students as they discover the enormous toll that civil war in Uganda has on children. The children, fueled by fears of abduction, commute nightly in massive numbers from their homes to a hospital in order to find a safe place to sleep. Invisible Children's namesake comes from the idea that African children, unlike Western children, tend to be ignored and denied opportunities to improve their future, and are thus "invisible," having to stand their own ground against society instead of being supported by it. Through candid interviews and portrayals of Ugandans from all walks of life, including the "night commuter" children, the film successfully captures how pervasive this way of thinking is in Uganda. 

Black is for Sunday, Invisible Children's second major film, focuses on Sunday, a 15-year-old boy living in a refugee camp for internally displaced Ugandans. Although Sunday is incredibly bright, he is an orphan and thus must provide for himself (and also for his community), a handicap that severely constrains his potential. Sunday is the emblematic refugee child, who dreams of escape and education but can have neither due to the downward-spiral way of life in camps and conflict areas. Both the films focus on the lack of opportunities for Ugandan children and urge action before these children become adults, and can no longer be saved. 

I like to think of myself as someone who generally doesn't cry, but I couldn't stop the tears from welling up while I watched Jacob, a young Ugandan boy featured in Invisible Children, narrate his tale. In order to avoid abduction by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), the main Northern Ugandan rebel group that kidnaps children to use as soldiers, Jacob and his brother Thomas, with no other family, live in hiding. "I have nothing!" he exclaims, and then, remembering his older brother who was abducted and killed by the LRA, is overwhelmed with emotion. The effect of the earnest suffering, the hesitant tears, and the underlying vein of human resilience is stirring, and although I could not directly relate to Jacob, his sincere display of emotion evoked my deepest empathy. 

Looking around at the 50-odd others who were there, I noticed I wasn't the only one moved by this scene (and by the rest of the movie, too). The film captivated the entire audience. It makes sense. Invisible Children and Black is for Sunday are two incredibly poignant documentaries which ignited nationwide movements, involving mostly high school and college students, to improve conditions for children in Northern Uganda. Last year, for example, these movements raised $1.2 million through Schools for Schools. 

These grassroots movements are the foundation stones of the Invisible Children non-profit. Heralding the slogan "Can a story change the world?" and the Gandhian tenet to "be the change you wish to see," Invisible Children chapters around the country raised money and awareness for the Ugandan children. In addition, the group also organized the "Global Night Commute," in April of 2006, a simulation of nightly commute many Ugandan children faced. According to the Invisible Children website, the Global Night Commute drew 80,000 participants and encouraged the United States government to "take historic steps with legislation that will create stability in Northern Uganda and bring peace to the invisible children." 

Globally, then, exactly how big is this problem of child soldiers? A child soldier is defined as any person under the age of 18 being used in armed conflict. In Northern Uganda itself, over 30,000 children have been abducted for use in the war. According to the UNICEF Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, there are an estimated 250,000 children under the age of 18 actively fighting as soldiers in over 33 countries, while over half a million children have been recruited for use in armed conflict. 

Child soldiers, particularly those who have been kidnapped and forced into fighting, live in a state beyond fear. In some of the worst conflict areas, such as Sierra Leone or Uganda, they are often abducted at an age too young to be independent, and are then faced with an almost-Pavlovian conditioning process to train them to kill. They witness their comrades get brutally murdered as "examples" to the children--if you don't do as we say, this will be your fate, too. Fear is accordingly used as the driving force in these armies of children. 

In addition to killing, child soldiers are also grossly exposed to and exploited for hard drugs and sex. In Sierra Leone, for example, children were reportedly drugged and then sent to kill their own parents as an "initiation rite." Ishmael Beah, a former Leonean child soldier who now lives in New York City, recounts in his memoirs that amphetamine addiction as well as pressure from the army prevented him from attempting to escape on his own. In Liberia, young girls were repeatedly raped and kept as "wives" for army and rebel commanders. The unimaginable stories continue; even in Hollywood such horror is rare, yet it continues to happen to real children in real conflicts in real countries around the world. 

Tales such as these inspired a group of young students at New York University last year to take action. After learning in detail about African child soldiers in their freshman seminar on 20th century United Nations operations and realizing that the severity of child soldiering was generally unknown and unacknowledged, Yang-Yang Zhou, Eric Min, Isha Dandavate, and Tajah Patel teamed up to create Child(Not)Soldier to raise awareness about the issue. 

Armed with a grant from Youth Venture, an organization that offers financial and logistical support to young people interested in social entrepreneurship, the kids from Child(Not)Soldier began spreading their message on the NYU campus. They organized movie screenings, invited guest speakers, passed fliers to fellow students, and successfully got the word out. Today, Child(Not)Soldier schedules weekly meetings to discuss the issue of child soldiers worldwide, not just in Africa. They still organize events; the Invisible Children screening I attended couldn't have happened without their work. They participate actively in Schools for Schools and raised several hundred dollars so far, which can go a long way in improving schooling in Africa. Despite being around for only a year, they are well on their way to increasing awareness about child soldiers among their peers and helping to educate underprivileged kids (an excellent investment and effective protection against child soldiering). 

The Child(Not)Soldier team members are just normal college students who, like the founders of Invisible Children, started off with an idea and a touch of inspiration. They were completely new to the prospect of a humanitarian organization when they first started, but because they didn't let that deter them they learned, and were able to make progress. The point is that improvements and big changes in the world aren't caused by people who are predestined to make them happen; they are caused by people who see something they want to change, and then have to guts to act on it. Forgive me if that sounds horribly cliched (because it is), but it's a truism that has proved itself repeatedly in the instance of Child(Not)Soldier, Invisible Children, and countless other organizations that make a positive impact. Jason Russell, the president of Invisible Children, once said that "the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who actually do." 

So if you're reading this, and feeling quite comfortable in your surroundings, you don't need to feel guilty. Just make a contribution, and watch the ripples expand into the sea.