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Students participating in Global Night Commute, an event aimed at simulating the trek children in

With her sleeping bag in hand and her belongings strapped on her back, Elizabeth Rulon began her six-mile walk on the jammed and congested streets of Santa Monica Boulevard on Saturday evening alongside over 200 other UCLA students.

Though she felt hungry and cold, Rulon, a third-year communication studies student, said she believed her soreness was minimal compared to the trek the Northern Ugandan children take every night – a trek that Rulon, along with more than 2,000 other young people in L.A., mimicked Saturday evening.

“It’s almost sad to me that I wanted to complain that I was wet, cold and hungry. But this is only one night ... and I’m not fleeing for my life as a 5-year-old in Uganda,” Rulon said.

With the ultimate goal of encouraging the U.S. to become involved in the civil war in Northern Uganda, more than 80,000 people across the country gathered in 130 cities, from Chicago to San Diego, to take part in the Global Night Commute, a six-mile night commute to a specified location, involving spending the night at the designation and walking back home the next morning.

The walk was meant to symbolize the walk Ugandan children take between local urban areas and their home in village outskirts in search of refuge from a rebel army, which kidnaps children from their rural homes and trains them to fight.

Five thousand children aged five to 12 have been kidnapped in the civil war, and on any given night 40,000 children leave their homes in fear of being abducted, returning the next morning, according to Invisible Children, a national group which has sought to bring attention to the situation in Uganda with hopes of inciting government involvement.

As the war continued for years, participating soldiers began to lose faith in the cause of overthrowing the Ugandan government and leave the army.

To fill the thinning ranks of soldiers, the resistance army began kidnapping and conscripting children.

Christie Tedmon, a fifth-year psychology student, assisted in organizing the commute for Westwood residents – the majority of which were UCLA students – which involved walking from the Federal Building on Veteran Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard, and eventually joining over 2,000 other L.A. residents at Santa Monica City Hall.

At the City Hall, participants each created a piece of art, which they plan to compile and send to the Senate.

People were also asked to write letters to state senators, as well as President Bush, asking them to provide more aid for the children and people of Uganda.

In her letter to President Bush, Tedmon said she tried to give the president perspective into the situation in Northern Uganda, asking him to imagine what it would be like if his children were in that situation.

“How would you feel if your kid got abducted into a rebel army and you never saw them again? If your kid had to leave home at night for a five-mile walk, and then come back home early in the morning, to escape the army?” Tedmon said.

In her letter, Rulon said the U.S. government should take action to protect the children of Uganda.

“We wouldn’t let this happen to our own children, but why are we willing to turn a blind eye to kids in another side of the world? Our kids aren’t different from their kids. They’re equally valuable and precious,” Rulon said.

The idea for the march came from a documentary called “Invisible Children,” which was also the basis for the student group of the same name.

In the documentary, the filmmakers announced the idea and set the date for the Global Night Commute event, which gained momentum through college student groups publicly showing the film on college campuses.

Anthony Halim, a third-year neuroscience student, said what struck him most about the event was the youth participation.

“I think it particularly hits hard with the youth, because if we were in Uganda, it could be us that could be the child soldiers,” Halim said.

As she commuted to Santa Monica, Rulon said she was excited by the publicity the commuters were getting as people rolled down the windows of their cars to inquire about the walking students.

Though Rulon said she was tired and sore after the six-mile trip, she recognized the walk did not come close to the commute it was representing.

“They’re walking without shoes. ... It’s on dirt roads and they’re watching out for their lives,” Rulon said.

Tedmon said her favorite part of the event was the sunrise showing of a newly extended version of “Invisible Children,” which included clips of the participants.

One clip featured a six-year-old child who attended the event with his parents, holding a sign that said, “one American child for one African child.”

“(The clip) was kind of a culmination of what the walk and the night was about and how (participants) were a part of something big that happened across the country,” Tedmon said.