I learned about the children of Northern Uganda in 2004. I couldn't stop thinking about them. I had the idea for the Name Campaign but didn't pursue it - until one night I woke up and KNEW I had to do something, even just take a tiny first step. At 3 am, I started researching any organizations I could find that might have a list of names of kids who had been abducted. I ended up with the phone number of Angelina Atyam, a woman I had seen on Oprah whose daughter had been abducted. I called her in Uganda right then and somehow managed to reach her. She was so lovely to me - a complete stranger calling out of the blue. I told her about the idea and she encouraged me to move forward. At the end of our conversation, I told her that I keep her daughter Charlotte in my thoughts and pray that she'll come home one day. Angelina was quiet and then said "So you don't know?" My heart dropped - I thought she was going to tell me that her daughter had died. Instead she said "I have just this day come from seeing my daughter for the first time in seven years. She escaped from the LRA yesterday." She had thought I was calling her because I had heard the news - when in reality, I was calling her because I had heard (and finally listened to) the voice within that calls each of us to act. I was speechless from the synchronicity. I took it as a sign - to speak their names, tell their story, bring them home. To begin. And that's how we started.  

-Cori Stern