There must be few places in the world where women need more support than in eastern Congo, where 4 million people have died and many communities have been destroyed during a nearly 10-year-old conflict. A story in The New York Times this month reported on a new epidemic of sexual violence against women – just one small hospital in eastern Congo’s South Kivu Province admits 10 more rape patients every day and is building a special ward just for sexual assault victims. The women you meet in this gripping slideshow are getting medical care, but they and thousands like them need help to rebuild their lives and their communities.
Hang on, stay with us! You know we wouldn't just bring you down and leave you there! The suffering is huge, but your capacity to help is actually far, far greater. Check this out:
After hearing stories about eastern Congo on an episode of "Oprah" three years ago, Lisa Shannon, a Portland, Oregon resident, spent two weeks feeling overwhelmed, not knowing what, if anything, she could do to help. Finally she had an idea she knew she could handle: a fund-raising run for Women for Women International, with the money specifically earmarked for Congolese women. Women for Women matches women with individual sponsors, whose financial backing enrolls each woman in a one-year training program with fellow survivors to help them rebuild their lives.
Lisa trained for and completed her first run solo, losing toenails and raising blisters in the process. Her goal was to raise enough money to sponsor one woman through Women for Women for every mile she ran – all 31 of them. She raised enough to sponsor 80.
That solo run steamrolled into a nationwide movement called Run for Congo Women that has changed the lives of hundreds of women. Lisa says the organization has now grown too big for her to handle alone. She’s in the process of handing it over to Women for Women so she can get back to running her stock photography business, but she’ll stay involved as a spokeswoman and volunteer. Earlier this year, she traveled to eastern Congo – her first trip to Africa – to meet some of the women whose lives she has helped change. And they, Lisa says, have changed hers.
Help a woman heal the world! Read our HumanKind Challenge #2 for ways you can make a concrete difference in the life of one woman, who in turn will make a difference for others.
If you would like to learn more about sponsoring a Congolese woman for a year of training that includes financial and emotional support, and leadership and business education, click here. All donations to Women for Women through Oct. 31 will be doubled - matched by a generous donor.
HK: You didn’t start with the intention of founding an organization. Have there been times when you thought it would be impossible to keep this going?
LS: The first year, the challenge was whether I could run 30 miles. I kept it a secret the first four months I was training because I wasn’t sure I could do it! And certainly when I set out my initial goal of raising 30 sponsorships, I had no idea how that would happen. And then it took on a life of its own.
While doing the run, there are moments where you’re physically in pain. The way I always go through that was focusing on women in Congo. But I have no background in non-profit management. I haven’t been satisfied with what I’ve been able to do, the way I’ve been able to manage it. That’s tough, I think, for me. There are a couple of things that help – just reminding myself that even if I do it imperfectly, it’s enough.
There are certainly things I can’t control, like how many people show up at a run and how much they fund-raise. At the moments when I’ve felt most frustrated, all it takes is thinking of women in Congo, particularly after having met the women and hearing their stories. The sort of things these women have been through – they not only manage to get up and take on their day and take care of their children, but 40 percent of them have taken in orphans, when they themselves have nothing.
It’s funny because there’s a propensity to kind of look at it and think, “We’ve been able to do so much for these women.” But I feel it has absolutely been an equal exchange.
HK: How do you mean?
LS: To begin with, one of the main motivators for creating the run were stories that I was reading, and speaking with Congolese people, hearing from people over and over again that when 4 million people die and people ignore it, they don’t feel human. That’s something I heard from women over and over again in their letters: “They kill us like animals.”
I don’t know how to stop the war, I don’t know how to impact international policy. But what I can do is make a very simple statement that sends the opposite message. When I actually spoke to a woman who had been sponsored through the run, she said, “I feel like a human being again. I feel like a woman again.”
What is consistent is a sense of restored humanity. The sense that they have a role to play in society. The sense that someone cares, that their life matters to someone, that someone believes in them. That’s the fundamental thing. A lot of their letters end with, “I don’t have much to say,” which I guess is normal, living in a culture where no one has ever listened to them before. But they have so much to say!
A lot of the exchange happens in learning about the dignity and grace they live their lives with every day. And they don’t do it perfectly, but in their profiles, you find widows who are managing to build businesses – you see the sort of resilience that people have.
HK: So both sisters really benefit when the women and their sponsors write to each other.
LS: I think a lot of people feel awkward, but the women are genuinely interested. They really want to know about your family. The women in Congo are extremely religious and you just hear over and over in their letters that they will continue to pray for the people who sponsor them. So they really reach out on the friendship level to the sisters who sponsor them.
One sister in particular had her husband and her child shot in front of her, and she had four living children. I actually visited her house in a slum. And when I was at her house, she pulled out this little packet of all the cards and the photos that I had sent, and she kept it in the same packet as the photo of her husband. Whenever I went to a group, these women would come up to me, wondering if I knew their sister in America. They kept their letters in the same plastic bag, neatly folded.
I think American women tend to think, “They’re going through so much, why would it matter if I send them a letter?” But boy, the women who had never received a letter were really hurt. So I often would pull out stationery and fill out a little letter! It really means a lot to them, even if it’s just a postcard, even if it’s just a photo.
HK: You mention on the site that at first your friends weren’t into helping you with your run. You’ve talked to a lot of people since then about what’s happening in the Congo and how they can help – why don’t people always respond the way you hope they will?
LS: I think there are a couple of things. I think there are stereotypes about Africa. People think, “Africa: pit of despair, nothing we can do.” The thing that I think penetrates that is, particularly with the Women for Women program, there are measurable results. You can reach out to one woman and know you made a difference. Not in an abstract way, but in a concrete way.
I think certainly that sense of overwhelm can stop people. With Congo, it’s a tricky thing, because this is kind of a pervasive question. Four million people have died. Why is it that it hasn’t been talked about? Everyone seems to have a theory about it. It’s kind of like a tipping point question: No one’s talking about it because no one’s talking about it. But if people think there’s something they can do, then people will talk about it.
That is the fundamental thing that Run for Congo Women is designed for. We’re not going to wait around for some big buzz around the nation to do something about it. We’re doing something now, because something needs to happen now. My sense has been that once people know about what’s going on in Congo, they want to get involved. The real barrier has been lack of basic knowledge about what the conflict is I’d say the number one thing is, “Congo? What’s that? Where is that?”
HK: So how do you explain it?
LS: To begin with, I start with the Rwandan genocide. Effectively, the conflict in Congo started with the end of that genocide. The Hutu militias responsible for the Rwandan genocide were pushed over the border into Congo, where they set up shop and started terrorizing locals. And then other militias were formed to fight them or each other, and it erupted into what has been termed Africa’s first World War.
However, the United Nations has accused all the countries involved in the conflict of using it as a cover to loot – gold, diamonds, resources – because Congo is so wealthy in resources. The long and short of it is that more than 4 million people have died, making it the deadliest war since World War II, and the world has effectively ignored it.
Some people want to relate to it right now as a post-conflict situation, but militias are still there attacking people. There is very active fighting. When people are being burned alive in their huts, that’s not a post-conflict situation, in my mind.
HK: Economist Jeffrey Sachs has said that the key to ending poverty is simple: public understanding. Do you think that’s true of the situation in the Congo? What’s stopping us?
LS: It begins with that sense of overwhelm, which I shared. For about two weeks after seeing the "Oprah" episode about Congo, I had that sense of overwhelm. But it’s about picking one concrete measurable thing that you can do that you have control over. Doing that one thing, and knowing that however imperfect, it’s enough.
I’ve been doing this for two and a half years and I don’t know how to end the conflict in Congo. You just focus on what you have control over. We’ve helped hundreds and hundreds of women at this point and thousands of children.
HK: And how has your life changed since you founded Run for Congo Women?
LS: I did put my business on hold to build Run for Congo Women. And in all honesty, I’ve made a lot of personal sacrifices. This is the other thing people are afraid of – they’re afraid if they take it on a little bit, it will take over their life. I am the poster child for that. That’s part of what I’m working on right now. I can also have my own life. I think that’s entirely possible.
I’m a completely different person than I was three years ago. How does it affect a person to actually go to Congo and sit with women and listen to them talk about what they’d been through? I’d never even been to Africa before. I don’t know how to begin to talk about it. Having sat with people who have grown to be your friends – I don’t know how to put words on it.
Zainab Salbi (the founder of Women for Women International) and Alice Walker – they were there for three days, and I was there for six weeks. We were in the airport together on the Rwandan side. I asked Alice what her impression had been. She turned it around on me – what had my impression been? I completely choked. I just started to cry, and I couldn’t stop crying. I had a total meltdown in this airport in front of all these African businessmen.
What do you even begin to say? It’s been seven months since I’ve been in Congo, and I still feel like I don’t know, I still can’t trace the ways that it’s affected me. Except to say that the Congolese women themselves are such an inspiration in terms of the ways that they live, and I hope I’m inching towards having that kind of compassion and grace.
If you would like to learn more about sponsoring a Congolese woman for a year of training that includes financial and emotional support, and leadership and business education, click here. All donations to Women for Women through Oct. 31 will be doubled - matched by a generous donor.
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