Jacob Acaye

Senate Foreign Relations Committee with Jacob (http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/xevDSZdokXF/Senate+Foreign+Relations+Committee+Holds+Hearing/Cxg0POKNDg2/Jacob+Acaye ())

"Until now the war that was going on has been a silent war. People did not really know about it. Now what was happening in Gulu is still going on elsewhere in the Central African Republic and in Congo. What about the people who are suffering over there? They are going through what we were going through", says Jacob Acaye (Telegraph Media Group). Jacob is a hero because he is a symbol of bravery for many people. He is trying to end a war that started before he was born and has been going on for over twenty-six years. He wants to save African people from living in fear of getting abducted and killed. Therefore, he is following his childhood dream of becoming a lawyer to help his people by doing justice.

Formally a LRA solider, Jacob is now twenty-one and he is following his dream of becoming a lawyer. LRA, shortened for Lord Resistance Army, is a local military and religious group that operates in northern Uganda and South Sudan. The Lord's Resistance Army has sought to overthrow the Ugandan government and is led by Joseph Kony. LRA army abducts children as its soldiers and makes them steal, burn hunts, murder, and other horrifying crimes (Fantz). Jacob was one of those soldiers. He was abducted with his brother who tried to escape and because of that he was executed. After witnessing his brother's death, Jacob ran away and he was found three weeks later by the group behind the Kony 2012 video, while sleeping on a veranda in Gulu. He was only thirteen at the time. The group that found him was curious about what was going on. Jacob was the only one who could speak English so he told them about Kony and the LRA army (Telegraph Media Group). He deserves to be referred to as hero because of his courage. 

Jacob giving a speech about Kony (http://blogs.dailyemerald.com/photo/2010/04/14/invisible-children-legacy-tour/ ())

During one of his speeches regarding the African children's situation in Uganda, Jacob said, "I do not want children to think that they have to pick up a gun to get money, or pick up a gun to get food" (US LAWMAKERS HEAR FROM KONY-LRA VICTIMS). One of the reasons Jacob deserves to be a hero is because he is trying to save his people from sleeping every night in the fear of getting murdered. He wants them to have a life that everyone deserves; a life filled with happiness and joy. As a child he was forced to steal, kill and abuse others and now as an adult he has dedicated his life to save other children from going through what he has been through.  Jacob is traveling around America to spread his message and to ask for help. In order to save his people he needs to capture Kony and other head LRA leaders and in order to capture them he needs American soldiers to come to Uganda and train African soldiers so they can find Kony in the deep jungles (Kony2012).To spread and inform people about Kony, Jacob received help from the invisible children association. "For me the criticism [of Kony 2012] is unfair, because if I am to say it is fair then I wouldn't be here. Right now I wouldn't have been able to speak to me right now because I had no hope in my life "says Jacob Acaye (Mckenzie). Jason Russell the director and the narrator of the movie Kony 2012, was a big motivation for Jacob to spread his message. He wanted to help and now that he had an actual witness he could make an effective movie in hopes to get Kony arrested. After the movie was made Jacob became famous and he started to follow his dream of becoming a lawyer to do justice. 

Joseph Kony (http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0425/us-senators-hear-about-kony-kidnap.html ())

Joseph Kony claims that he wants to establish a government in Uganda based on the Biblical 10 Commandments but by abducting children, raping and killing people he is now wanted by the international criminal court because of the crimes he had done. He has been kidnapping children and making them into sex slaves and soldiers for twenty-six years and this year is the year Jacob is aiming to end this brutality (BBC). "It should get the attention of everyone in the world it has been going on for twenty-six years. It shows we are failing to solve it" (Kony victim returns home). Ending a war that was started before he was born shows Jacob's bravery. He is a caring young man how is inspiring to other people by at least trying and putting time to inform people about the existence of Kony and people like him and ask them for help. If more people know about Kony and his hideous crimes, they would feel sympathy and try to somehow contribute to capturing Kony and that is exactly what we need to arrest him. 

say NO to Joseph Kony (http://americanwing.blogspot.com/2012/03/say-no-to-kony-2012.html ())

"Bringing Kony to justice will show the world that impunity is not a way forward, to let human souls suffer. And I think bringing him to justice will in long run, stop people around the world who are so brutal, and who think that playing around with the lives of human beings in the way forward" (Telegraph Media Group). Jacob is young but he has the courage of an old man. He is following his dream of becoming a lawyer so that one day he can defend his people through law. To him it does not matter if he cannot end the war, the important thing is he is trying and motivating other people to try for what they think is right. A hero does not have to save other people in person like firefighters or police officers. A person who attempts to save other people deserves to be known as a hero too. Jacob witnessed LRA slaughtering his brother. He escaped, well mostly because he was scared, but beside that he escaped to inform people about what was happening." When you wake up in the morning and you hear that people are still being abducted in Congo, it takes my mind back to the situation where I was abducted. And if someone's brother is being killed in Congo, it takes my mind back when I saw my brother being slaughtered" (US LAWMAKERS HEAR FROM KONY-LRA VICTIMS). He still suffers from remembering the past but he has tried to prevent his past to happen to someone else.