About a year ago, Natalia and Hannah Ledford put finals and homework and violin practice on hold to watch a movie in the Lincoln High School auditorium.

From their comfortable chairs in their comfortable city, they saw childhoods distorted by civil war and a rebel army in a place called Uganda.

They listened to boys and girls talk about killing and war, loss and fear and hopelessness.

And when the lights came on, the sisters weren’t thinking about finals anymore.

“I don’t think you can watch that movie and not want to do something,” said Hannah, a Lincoln High senior.

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While 19-year-old Jillian Brown was spending Christmas break in Maine with her family, her sister popped in a DVD.

“Good,” said Jillian’s sister. “I want you to see this.”

The movie was called “Invisible Children.”

Jillian cried as she watched, and when she left for Union College in Lincoln, she threw the DVD in her backpack and brought it with her.

She wanted to help, to bring the filmmakers to Lincoln, to spread the word here.

“I just couldn’t sit back and do nothing.”

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In January, Jenna Stauffer, a communications studies major at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, attended a Christian youth conference in Nashville.

This wasn’t the first documentary Jenna had seen, not the first glimpse of strife and hardship in other parts of the globe. But this was different.

“I just couldn’t get it out of my head,” she said.

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And so the young women worked for a cause, unaware of each other’s existence, that they all were touched by the same film, all working to help the children in Uganda who talked to them through the camera lens.

What captivated them was the story of the victims of a 20-year-old civil war in northern Uganda, children who trek into cities at night to sleep in buildings and alleys, uncomfortable and cramped but safe from rebel soldiers who abduct them and force them to join the army.

Three California college students made the movie, then founded the nonprofit organization of the same name to educate Americans about the problem and to help educate the Ugandan children.

In Lincoln, although the young women inspired by the movie worked separately, word began to spread.

“This is kind of spreading like wildfire,” said Collin Sullivan, president of the UNL chapter of Amnesty International. “It’s been something of a weird phenomenon on campus.”

That phenomenon eventually brought Jenna and Jillian, Hannah and Natalia together, along with others to organize an event called Global Night Commute. The Lincoln event is part of a national effort by Invisible Children organizers to bring supporters together to sleep in cities, like the Ugandan children are forced to do nightly.

The goal: to educate and pressure U.S. lawmakers and the United Nations to take an active role in peacekeeping and humanitarian work in northern Uganda.

In Lincoln, businesses chipped in, donating T-shirts and offering food, although local organizers turned down the latter.

“Tents and all the material things of America, we just wanted to rid ourselves of that because they don’t have that,” said Amanda Clark, a Union College student who helped organize Saturday’s event.

By Saturday afternoon, nearly 55,000 people had signed up on the Invisible Children Web site to participate. In Lincoln, the number surpassed 700 — more than Denver, Kansas City and Las Vegas.

Last summer, Natalia, a sophomore, told her sister her hope: For their dream become Lincoln’s dream.

“Then a year later,” said Hannah, “it happened.”

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After they saw the film, Natalia and Hannah began working on the dream. They made fliers, arranged to show the film at their church and went to the newspaper to see if they could interest a reporter in writing a story. Their first screening to a church audience of 150 raised nearly $1,600.

This fall, they took their cause back to Lincoln High and got the student council involved. The group held a dance, filled the school walls with names of donors and left coffee cans for donations at local coffee shops and boutiques. Their efforts raised $3,300 to be put toward a new school.

They went to a Lutheran youth meeting in Kearney and got a list of e-mail addresses of interested students. They sent packets of information to all the high schools.

They arranged for a national Invisible Children tour to stop in Lincoln in March.

In the meantime, Jenna and Jillian had been talking to friends and arranged their own screenings.

When the Invisible Children tour stopped in Lincoln, the crew stayed at Jenna’s house and she began to organize Lincoln’s Global Night Commute in earnest.

And suddenly it was everywhere.

Student councils at other high schools took on the project.

Teachers showed the movie in their classrooms.

An Invisible Children groups started at East High by sophomore Shawn Schmalken and a friend made children’s books they plan to send to Uganda.

Shawn helped organize the Global Night Commute and the school group wants to do its own city tour, like the national one on a smaller scale.

“We kinda wanted to help,” he said. “We’re the ones who want to change the world.”

At Southwest High, Mark Gudgel, who teaches English and holocaust literature, showed the movie to his students and invited the Invisible Children crew to visit.

Saturday is Southwest High School’s prom. Gudgel said some students have told him Invisible Children’s Global Night Commute is more important.

“It’s moved me,” he said. “They’re just awesome kids. It’s really reassuring to know this information doesn’t just go in one ear and out the other.”

The Invisible Children group has captured many young people’s attention, Gudgel believes, because it involves children and because the organization offers practical and tangible ways to help.

“It’s not just ‘this is going on’ it’s ‘this is going on and here’s what you can do about it.”

Amanda Clark, one of the Union College students, said their efforts remind her of the 1960s, when young people thought they could make a difference.

“This is something we can do, be a part of,” she said. “It’s definitely exercising our rights, being activists.”

Jingo Musah, a Union College student from Uganda, wanted to help too, even though his home is in southern Uganda, removed from the civil war.

“I wanted to get involved because they are my brothers,” he said.

When the UNL Amnesty International group showed the movie on campus, 250 people showed, said Sullivan, the chapter president.

“Lincoln, Nebraska is about as removed from Uganda as you can get,” he said. “Seeing this outpouring of support is really inspiring.”

For two sisters, it is a dream come true, one started by a guy who brought a movie to their school a year ago.

“He’s the spark,” Hannah said.

Yeah, said Natalia.

“Everybody else is the explosion.”

Reach Margaret Reist at 473-7226 or mreist@journalstar.com.

'Invisible Children'

Invisible Children has raised about $800,000 in donations, said Director Ben Keesey. The money has been used for two purposes:

* To educate people through the movie “Invisible Children.”

* To help educate Ugandan children. To accomplish the latter, they have hired eight Ugandans to act as mentors for about 300 children, Keesey said.

The group also has started a bracelet program, employing about 120 people forced by the government out of their homes and into camps for their protection from the rebel army. The Ugandans make the bracelets, which are sold by Invisible Children, with the proceeds being returned to Uganda. Keesey said they’ve made about $250,000 so far.

To learn more, go to http://www.invisiblechildren.com/.