Last year, Juliet Bertolucci and Hector Gonzalez were typical Notre Dame High School freshmen trying to navigate a new campus and a full load of college-prep courses.

In spite of their busy school and personal schedules, they attended an optional, on-campus screening of a film documentary, "Invisible Children," highly recommended by their 24-year-old religion teacher, Bridget Lander.

As a college student at USD, Lander viewed the documentary when three San Diego State University student filmmakers came to show their "rough cut" film of a 10-day camera expedition in 2003 to Uganda's war-torn northern region.

The result was an unflinching, heart-wrenching and sometimes hilarious portrayal of the lives of tens of thousands of children who leave their homes nightly for safe havens to escape being kidnapped by rebel soldiers and forced to fight, if they are boys, or serve as sex slaves, if they are girls.

The 90-minute film highlights the courage, faith and hope of these 5- to 14-year-olds, who take turns acting as group leaders on their late afternoon stealth treks to the basement of a large building where they sleep in crowded, dank quarters.

Before sleeping, many do homework as best they can in almost total darkness. They wake before dawn to pray and then depart in silence to arrive at their homes before daybreak. This phenomenon of night commuting "invisible" children has been going on for years during the region's 20-year-long war.

"I fell in love with the film," said Lander, who started her teaching career a year after seeing the documentary. When she arrived at Notre Dame in the fall of 2005, another religion teacher who had seen the film at LMU agreed that it might be an inspirational component to the religion program.

"The reaction was unreal," said Lander. "At first they were crying, laughing at parts. When they left, everybody wanted to do something."

Among the first freshmen to see the film last year, Bertolucci and Gonzalez became converts to a grass-roots cause which has swept the nation as students around the country raise money for the Invisible Children foundation established by the filmmakers.

Since the film was first shown at Notre Dame in the fall of 2005, students have raised $11,000 for the cause. Nationally, according to Lander, approximately $25 million has been raised which has allowed the foundation to build another safe haven and provide books and teachers for the children.

As Notre Dame's faculty sponsor of the social justice club, Lander noted that the school "is very much into social causes," such as Amnesty International and Operation Smile. However, said Lander, Invisible Children "is the first project where I think the students really felt they were making a difference."

For Bertolucci, seeing the film "was so inspiring because the [children in the film] had a lot of hope. They just made me feel like I could do something to help them because they really need it. Like, you try to help people here, and you don't really know if they need it." To help raise funds, Bertolucci participated in bake sales and, as one of the 85 members of the social justice club, made appeals for donations in classrooms throughout the year.

The optimism of the children in the film, in spite of their dangerous surroundings and few material possessions, impressed many of the Notre Dame students. "By just seeing them, you see how grateful they are for the little things that they have and here we have all these luxuries that we see as necessities," said Gonzalez. "When we see situations like those, we just become more aware and more grateful of even the smallest things like a roof over our heads or a bed or anything."

"I think it makes the kids have a lot more faith in God. I know I do after seeing it," added Bertolucci. "I feel way more that God's blessed me so much, so I just want to share that with the kids in Africa. You don't even know what religion they are but you just see they're so giving to everybody.

"The guys that made the film seem so giving and they really want to spread the word to help these kids. It amazes me they're so much like that because they are college students and everyone kind of thinks college students are so wild and crazy and yet these guys go to Africa and try to save these children."

As far as the effect the film has had on teaching religion, Lander said it's made her job a lot easier. "They're always telling us in any education school, if you can get the kids to be captured by something, do it," said Lander, who will give students the opportunity to see "Invisible Children" again this year. Though the students are not obligated to see it, noted Lander, most members of the student body have seen the film.

"I show this in the beginning of the fall semester, and we talk about it throughout the year. It puts things into perspective," said Lander.

For more information on the Invisible Children foundation, log on to www.invisiblechildren.com.