WHO IS BEN KEESEY?
Ben Keesey is currently the CEO of Invisible Children, the organization that was founded in 2004 to create awareness of the activities of the Lord’s Resistance Army and its leader joseph Kony. The group specifically focuses on efforts to end the practice of the LRA abducting and abusing children and forcing them to serve as child soldiers.
He received his B.A. in Applied Mathematics, Management and Accounting from the University of California, Los Angeles. Prior to joining up with Invisible Children in 2005, Keesey was set to continue working with Brentwood Associates Private Equity and Deloitte. He first began to find an interest in humanitarian work after seeing a documentary called Invisible Children that was put together by the founders of the organization, of whom Keesey knew from school. He was inspired by the self-sacrificing good he saw his friends doing and signed up to go with his friends on their next trip to Uganda. After his first few initial visits to Uganda, which Keesey described to be “a dangerous place,” and a “fantastically scary experience” where he saw first hand the horrors of child soldiers, Keesey asked for a year of deferred employment from Deloitte to help his friends start a humanitarian organization. He never went back.
Since 2005, Keesey has been involved in many aspects of the organization. He initially joined in the capacity of assisting the organization to get financially off the ground. Keesey has remained with the organization since its grassroots start up however and has since then become the executive director and CEO. Keesey and Invisible Children have stated that their organization is dedicated to the mission of putting an end to the LRA and Joseph Kony, in particular their use of child soldiers. Keesey returns to East Africa every four to five months to help in the establishment of education opportunities, particularly for girls, and providing rehabilitation in post-conflict areas. In 2010, Keesey met with President Obama and was present for the Lords Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act, which became “the most widely supported Africa-focused legislation in history”.
The other large movement Invisible Children started that Keesey was involved in was the Kony 2012 campaign. This was a documentary film that highlighted the atrocities committed by Joseph Kony, the leader of the LRA. Because of the Kony 2012 film going viral over the course of just a few days, Keesey and Invisible Children were placed under a large spotlight where critics made many comments about the quality of their organization. Since the launch of Kony 2012, Joseph Kony still remains at large and for the last two years, the bulk of Keesey and Invisible Children’s work is to assist in LRA affected areas and encouraging safe LRA defection and rehabilitation of children who has be enslaved or conscripted. Keesey has since then turned to the new Invisible Children campaign called Zero LRA, which is about explaining that so much good has been done in helping the child soldiers affected by the Lord’s Resistance Army, but there is still much to be done.
References
http://www.lamag.com/citythink/citythinkblog/2013/09/03/kony-cont-invisible-children-ceo-ben-keesey-on-keeping-an-international-manhunt-alive
http://jezebel.com/5892696/ben-keesey-is-here-to-calmly-answer-your-concerns-about-invisible-children
https://www.csusm.edu/mba/bios/keesey.html
Ben Keesey is currently the CEO of Invisible Children, the organization that was founded in 2004 to create awareness of the activities of the Lord’s Resistance Army and its leader joseph Kony. The group specifically focuses on efforts to end the practice of the LRA abducting and abusing children and forcing them to serve as child soldiers.
He received his B.A. in Applied Mathematics, Management and Accounting from the University of California, Los Angeles. Prior to joining up with Invisible Children in 2005, Keesey was set to continue working with Brentwood Associates Private Equity and Deloitte. He first began to find an interest in humanitarian work after seeing a documentary called Invisible Children that was put together by the founders of the organization, of whom Keesey knew from school. He was inspired by the self-sacrificing good he saw his friends doing and signed up to go with his friends on their next trip to Uganda. After his first few initial visits to Uganda, which Keesey described to be “a dangerous place,” and a “fantastically scary experience” where he saw first hand the horrors of child soldiers, Keesey asked for a year of deferred employment from Deloitte to help his friends start a humanitarian organization. He never went back.
Since 2005, Keesey has been involved in many aspects of the organization. He initially joined in the capacity of assisting the organization to get financially off the ground. Keesey has remained with the organization since its grassroots start up however and has since then become the executive director and CEO. Keesey and Invisible Children have stated that their organization is dedicated to the mission of putting an end to the LRA and Joseph Kony, in particular their use of child soldiers. Keesey returns to East Africa every four to five months to help in the establishment of education opportunities, particularly for girls, and providing rehabilitation in post-conflict areas. In 2010, Keesey met with President Obama and was present for the Lords Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act, which became “the most widely supported Africa-focused legislation in history”.
The other large movement Invisible Children started that Keesey was involved in was the Kony 2012 campaign. This was a documentary film that highlighted the atrocities committed by Joseph Kony, the leader of the LRA. Because of the Kony 2012 film going viral over the course of just a few days, Keesey and Invisible Children were placed under a large spotlight where critics made many comments about the quality of their organization. Since the launch of Kony 2012, Joseph Kony still remains at large and for the last two years, the bulk of Keesey and Invisible Children’s work is to assist in LRA affected areas and encouraging safe LRA defection and rehabilitation of children who has be enslaved or conscripted. Keesey has since then turned to the new Invisible Children campaign called Zero LRA, which is about explaining that so much good has been done in helping the child soldiers affected by the Lord’s Resistance Army, but there is still much to be done.
References
http://www.lamag.com/citythink/citythinkblog/2013/09/03/kony-cont-invisible-children-ceo-ben-keesey-on-keeping-an-international-manhunt-alive
http://jezebel.com/5892696/ben-keesey-is-here-to-calmly-answer-your-concerns-about-invisible-children
https://www.csusm.edu/mba/bios/keesey.html