Invisible Children Documentary Analysis

In the New York Times, the article, ‘Invisible Child’ written by Andrea Elliott who is an investigative reporter, and photographed by Ruth Fremson. The writer talks about Dasani and her family. Dasani who is an 11 years old, also she is a homeless children in New York City. Generally, this article informs that homeless people’s life and their child. Moreover, this article shows that the girl, Dasani. She lives in shelter for homeless people in Brooklyn. Her parents have no job and also they are drug addicted. Furthermore, the shelter where Dasani and her family are living place, Elliott explains that "The smaller children lie tangled beside her, their chest rising and falling under winter coats and wool blankets. A few feet away, their mother

On average, there are an estimated 7,000 street children in Guatemala. About one child is abandoned every four days in Guatemala, as a result of the crippling poverty rate in the country many families simply cannot afford to raise another child. These kids suffer from not merely homelessness, but an utter lack of governmental support in an impoverished nation, forced to scavenge for basic necessities just to survive. Often times, these abandoned children are indigenous children from rural areas, who throughout Guatemalan history have been subjected to frequent government violence. Most of all, in the tropical climate, these children are without the proper clothing necessary to survive.

I believe that this movie has helped me better understand and also broaden my knowledge about human behavior and psychopathology by learning about what causes a mental disorder and also the symptoms and treatments that are available. It has also broadened my understanding of the difficultly that service men and woman returning from active duty suffer from when they have been diagnosed with PTSD. I’ve seen a number news shows that have described the increased rate of PTSD diagnosis in military personnel returning from duty in Afghanistan and Iraq. Given what I’ve learned from this paper, I can now better understand how the trauma of being an active front-line solder could easily cause someone to be diagnosed with PTSD. I can see how being confronted with a high level of violence on a day-to-day basis, and having to respond by killing others, can easily cause soldiers to display abnormal psychological behaviors, like PTSD. I can also imagine these solders becoming isolated, angry, and violent, much like Lisbeth displayed, as a feature of their PTSD. In the end, the types of treatments that I recommended for Lisbeth could also help these soldiers.

The documentary “Poor Kids”, it shows the story of the lives of three families who struggle to make ends meet every day. These families lack the resources such as money to buy food and other every day necessities, pay for the rent, and the parents not having a job or not having an unstable employment. I felt heavy hearted after watching this documentary because I can imagine myself in their situation. I feel blessed that I did not have to go through what these families are going through. It is hard to imagine how it feels like to have no money or little money to buy food, clothes and other things, pay the utilities, not having a decent place to live, moving from one motel to another, and not having a stable to job to support the family.

Joseph Kony, a Ugandan warlord abducts children. With the help of his Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), he forces children to join the military. Invisible Children, a US-based company, created a viral YouTube video called “Kony 2012” that opposed Kony’s and the LRA’s actions. John Naughton wrote an editorial praising “Kony 2012” in the Observer. Children from other countries enlist unwillingly in the military as well.

The parents realize that a sad existence of shame,and agony is in their child's future, if they stay in Tanzania. As Robert Penn Warren highlights in

With the United States of America having one of the highest child poverty rates, the documentary titled, Poor Kids, takes us to Stockton, Iowa where we follow the lives of three destitute families from the point of view of their children. Two of the families are on the verge of homelessness and the other one is already living in a shelter. Throughout this documentary we see what being poor in America looks like through the eyes of children.

Kony was a master at recruiting his soldiers and workers. To keep his people under his control, he would convince them that he is the Holy Spirit. That was one of his best tactics for recruitment. Also, in 2006, it was recorded that between the years of 1986-2005, Kony has abducted 66,000 children. The LRA does a crazy thing to spread fear into the eyes of civilians. They will hack away their ears, lips, hands and feet with michetties every time they strike a village. He also requires his slaves to kill their own parents so they have no one and nowhere to return if they ever escape. So in other words, they are forced to kill in this army no matter what and they will not be able to escape from the army because Kony gives them a “special potion”

The video “Poor Kids” touched on the lives of different children who were living in poverty. The three main children were Brittany, Jonny, and Kaylie and their siblings and parents were also involved in the filming. Kaylie had a single mom while Brittany and Jonny both lived in households with two parents. All of the children placed a large focus on school and wanting to do well in school. Once they were seen later on they were still talking about the importance of school with some people going back to school to earn high school diplomas and some with dreams of going on to college.

Imagine being snatched from your bed in the middle of the night and forced to commit horrific war crimes at only 7 years old. In Uganda, this sadly isn’t an unusual occurrence. Children and their families live in fear of being captured and made into child soldiers against their will. Led by Joseph Kony, the Lord’s Resistance Army has abducted over 30,000 children in Uganda and forced them to fight in war. These children are forced to become brutal killing machines, and lose touch with their livelihood, morals and ultimately their childhood. A student at MHS should care about the child soldiers in Uganda because children are the future of a country. If children grow up in inhumane conditions and trained to be violent from a young age, they will grow up into antagonistic adults that our generation will have to deal with later on in life.

For example, “Hospitals have seen an influx of patients suffering from preventable diseases, the aid group said”. These preventable diseases can include diarrhea, typhoid, hepatitis A, and most commonly malaria. Two out of every five children survive into their adulthood; because of unsanitary conditions, these diseases which are not prominent in well developed countries, have pronounced themselves as some of the most dangerous diseases in the country. This decrease of sanitation can be partially blamed on the ongoing war in the Congo. The rebel groups use children soldiers to fight their opponents. Furthermore, hospitals reported that, “Since government troops and rebels began clashing in the volatile eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, ‘the numbers arriving at the hospital have gone through the roof,’ said Dr. Louis Kamate of the Virunga Referral Hospital in Goma”. Conflicts and poverty have been proven to be the main factors of child death in the Congo. In order for the society to be successful, they must put an end to this terrible aspect of the country.

In the 2012 documentary Poor Kids, children living in the Quad Cities reflect on their lives in poverty. Each story is different but similar in many ways. At the time of the film, there were sixteen million children reported who were affected by poverty. The film also stated that one in five children were living in poverty. With large quantities of children being affected by poverty, the important to understand how these children are dealing with the factors of poverty.

In the documentary “Poor Kids” you get to truly see and feel how it is to be a child that suffers from food insecurity, poverty and the rest that comes with it. The fact that this problem exists in a developed country that you would assume it could provide for all their citizens. Well, the reality is we have many families suffering because of lack food and on top of that, we have children suffering from lack and food and more. As a society, we have grown to just be concerned about ourselves and we don’t focus on issues that affect others. We fail to see the struggles of others because it doesn’t directly impact us. We are focused on attaining wealth at all cost we would rather waste food than provide help for the ones in need. Ultimately, we are creating policies that, make sure no one gives food to the ones that needed the most. It’s a sad reality that we must face in order to continue to strive as a nation. Therefore, we need to acknowledge others and provide them with the respect that they deserve. We also have many corporations and elites that have control, power, and wealth. The stratified system in the U.S is making it that much harder for lower-income families to come out of poverty. Not only are they suffering from lack of food, lack income, and resources, but this also is affecting their pride and self-worth.

War is one of the principal reasons why most children become orphans. This phenomenon is quite common in Africa, the Middle East, and most parts of the world. This study would primarily be conducted in Monrovia, Liberia’s capital city where we find three basic types of orphans that are representative of orphans throughout the country: street orphans, orphans in institutions or orphanages, and orphans that live with extended family or in structured homes. A recent Newsweek study examines the challenges that Liberia faces of acclimating back in to society more than 38,000 children who were former child soldiers, cooks, grenades handlers and even sex slaves in recent Liberian wars (MacDougall, 2013). Following the wars,

After the war many children either became beggars or left to horrible orphanages making them live lives of being thieves or peasant kids that are living in orphanages that have horrible living conditions. According to the "Reports on Afghan Orphans." reports that ten million children was either killed during the war or traumatized from the war causing many young children to go orphanage. In the book Amir tries to find his nephew Sohrab that’s in Afghanistan orphanage and experiences the horrific lives these children go through. “We followed him through the hallways where barefoot children dressed in frayed sweater ambles around most room had no mattresses. ”p (253).