Here is an event that will advocate for the DRC.
http://congoglobalaction.org/index.html
A Blog of Rural Empowerment Initiative...or REI
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Thursday, February 28, 2008
Congo’s Death Rate Unchanged Since War Ended
By LYDIA POLGREEN
NY TIMES
Published: January 23, 2008
DAKAR, Senegal — Five years after Congo’s catastrophic war officially ended, the rate at which people are dying in the country remains virtually unchanged, according to a new survey, despite the efforts of the world’s largest peacekeeping force, billions of dollars in international aid and a historic election that revived democracy after decades of violence and despotism.
The survey, released Tuesday, estimated that 45,000 people continue to die every month, about the same pace as in 2004, when the international push to rebuild the country had scarcely begun. Almost all the deaths come from hunger and disease, signs that the country is still grappling with the aftermath of a war that gutted its infrastructure, forced millions to flee and flattened its economy.
In all, more than 5.4 million people have died in Congo since the war began in 1998, according to the most recent survey’s estimate, the latest in a series completed by the International Rescue Committee, an American aid organization. Nearly half of the dead were children younger than 5 years old.
Perhaps most alarming, while the death rate has slightly decreased in eastern Congo, the last festering node of conflict, it has actually increased in some parts of central Congo, though the area has not seen combat in several years. The study’s authors and other aid organizations said the focus of aid dollars on the east and neglect of the region by government were the most likely explanations for the changes. These surprising findings demonstrate the depth and complexity of Congo’s continuing crisis, said Richard Brennan, health director for the International Rescue Committee and one of the survey’s authors.
“The Congo is still enduring a crisis of huge proportions,” Dr. Brennan said. “Protracted elevations of mortality more than four years after the end of the war demonstrates that recovery from this kind of crisis is itself a protracted process. The international engagement has to be sustained and committed for years to come.”
The survey was based on a sample of 14,000 households surveyed in 700 villages and towns across Congo from January 2006 to April 2007.
Its authors emphasized that the figures in the report are estimates, based on widely accepted statistical methods for estimating death tolls in disasters, but the cumulative figure for how many have died since the war began has a wide margin of error given the difficulty of the terrain in Congo and the lack of precision in basic demographic information, like the prewar mortality rate or even Congo’s current population.
Still, improvements in security since 2004, when the last survey was completed, meant that researchers were able to visit many areas that were off limits last time, and as a result, its authors said, the current survey provides the most complete picture yet of the toll of Congo’s slide into despair.
That picture is not encouraging. The mortality rate in Congo is 57 percent higher than the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, the survey found. Particularly hard hit were young children, who are especially susceptible to diseases like malaria, measles, dysentery and typhoid, which can kill when medicine is not available. In one village in North Kivu Province, a hot spot of continued fighting, three women of the 20 households surveyed had lost two children each in the 16 months covered by the survey period, Dr. Brennan said.
Less than half a percentage point of the deaths were caused by violence, illustrating how the aftermath of war can be more deadly than combat itself. Much of the emergency aid is focused on the eastern part of the country, where militia battles with Congolese troops have chased nearly half a million people from their homes in the last year. A peace agreement to end that conflict was reached Monday.
But the increased mortality in areas outside of the volatile east is particularly worrying because it points to longer-term problems that endure long after the bullets have stopped flying.
“Given the nature of this country, the vast differences in terrain, the broken infrastructure, I am not surprised,” said Alan Doss, the newly appointed chief of the United Nations’ vast peace operation in Congo. “This will take a long time to turn around.”
The Congolese government spends just $15 per person each year on health care, according to the World Health Organization, less than half of what is recommended to provide the most basic but lifesaving care, like immunizations, malaria-fighting mosquito nets and hydration salts.
“The past two years, we can say the health situation has not improved at all,” said Brice de le Vingne, operations coordinator for the region that includes Congo for the aid group Doctors Without Borders. “The only thing that improved a bit is mobile phone coverage. We now are in contact with more people to know that the situation is not good.”
Mortality surveys are crucial tools for aid agencies, United Nations peacekeepers and even historians, but the methods used to compile them have come under attack.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Trip to Senegal
On March 20, I head out for Senegal for 11 days.
The team will consist of seven of us from Community Church and one person from North Carolina that has recently been appointed with United World Mission and one of our former church mates that relocated.
We are also meeting a gentlemen from Living Water in Senegal to explore and learn about clean water programs in the country.
I hope to have daily updates (or at least every other day) regarding our time there. I also hope to upload video and give you a feel of our trip and what we are doing and experiencing.
The following people are traveling to Senegal;
-Dave and Mary Colwin
-Jane Sybesma
-Monica Horn-formerly from Community Church...now resides in Texas
-Ben and Kirsten Pankow
-Rick and Sadie Slager...my oldest daughter is traveling with us!
-Dennis Hodge-North Carolina
-Brad Salzman from Living Water International
You will here much more on this trip in the following month....stay tuned.
We'd appreciate your prayers.
Evangelicals a Liberal Can Love
Evangelicals a Liberal Can Love
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: February 3, 2008
At a New York or Los Angeles cocktail party, few would dare make a pejorative comment about Barack Obama’s race or Hillary Clinton’s sex. Yet it would be easy to get away with deriding Mike Huckabee’s religious faith.
Liberals believe deeply in tolerance and over the last century have led the battles against prejudices of all kinds, but we have a blind spot about Christian evangelicals. They constitute one of the few minorities that, on the American coasts or university campuses, it remains fashionable to mock.
Scorning people for their faith is intrinsically repugnant, and in this case it also betrays a profound misunderstanding of how far evangelicals have moved over the last decade. Today, conservative Christian churches do superb work on poverty, AIDS, sex trafficking, climate change, prison abuses, malaria and genocide in Darfur.
Bleeding-heart liberals could accomplish far more if they reached out to build common cause with bleeding-heart conservatives. And the Democratic presidential candidate (particularly if it’s Mr. Obama, to whom evangelicals have been startlingly receptive) has a real chance this year of winning large numbers of evangelical voters.
“Evangelicals are going to vote this year in part on climate change, on Darfur, on poverty,” said Jim Wallis, the author of a new book, “The Great Awakening,” which argues that the age of the religious right has passed and that issues of social justice are rising to the top of the agenda. Mr. Wallis says that about half of white evangelical votes will be in play this year.
A recent CBS News poll found that the single issue that white evangelicals most believed they should be involved in was fighting poverty. The traditional issue of abortion was a distant second, and genocide was third.
Look, I don’t agree with evangelicals on theology or on their typically conservative views on taxes, health care or Iraq. Self-righteous zealots like Pat Robertson have been a plague upon our country, and their initial smugness about AIDS (which Jerry Falwell described as “God’s judgment against promiscuity”) constituted far grosser immorality than anything that ever happened in a bathhouse. Moralizing blowhards showed more compassion for embryonic stem cells than for the poor or the sick, and as recently as the 1990s, evangelicals were mostly a constituency against foreign aid.
Yet that has turned almost 180 degrees. Today, many evangelicals are powerful internationalists and humanitarians — and liberals haven’t awakened to the transformation. The new face of evangelicals is somebody like the Rev. Rick Warren, the California pastor who wrote “The Purpose Driven Life.”
Mr. Warren acknowledges that for most of his life he wasn’t much concerned with issues of poverty or disease. But on a visit to South Africa in 2003, he came across a tiny church operating from a dilapidated tent — yet sheltering 25 children orphaned by AIDS.
“I realized they were doing more for the poor than my entire megachurch,” Mr. Warren said, with cheerful exaggeration. “It was like a knife in the heart.” So Mr. Warren mobilized his vast Saddleback Church to fight AIDS, malaria and poverty in 68 countries. Since then, more than 7,500 members of his church have paid their own way to volunteer in poor countries — and once they see the poverty, they immediately want to do more.
“Almost all of my work is in the third world,” Mr. Warren said. “I couldn’t care less about politics, the culture wars. My only interest is to get people to care about Darfurs and Rwandas.”
Helene Gayle, the head of CARE, said evangelicals “have made some incredible contributions” in the struggle against global poverty. “We don’t give them credit for the changes they’ve made,” she added. Fred Krupp, the president of Environmental Defense, said, “Many evangelical leaders have been key to taking the climate issue across the cultural divide.”
It’s certainly fair to criticize Catholic leaders and other conservative Christians for their hostility toward condoms, a policy that has gravely undermined the fight against AIDS in Africa. But while robust criticism is fair, scorn is not.
In parts of Africa where bandits and warlords shoot or rape anything that moves, you often find that the only groups still operating are Doctors Without Borders and religious aid workers: crazy doctors and crazy Christians. In the town of Rutshuru in war-ravaged Congo, I found starving children, raped widows and shellshocked survivors. And there was a determined Catholic nun from Poland, serenely running a church clinic.
Unlike the religious right windbags, she was passionately “pro-life” even for those already born — and brave souls like her are increasingly representative of religious conservatives. We can disagree sharply with their politics, but to mock them underscores our own ignorance and prejudice.
I invite you to comment on this column on my blog, www.nytimes.com/ontheground. On the blog, you can also see readers setting me straight about previous columns and read posts from guest bloggers, including a Chicago teacher, Will Okun, and an aid worker in Bangladesh, Nicki Bennett.
More Articles in Opinion »
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: February 3, 2008
At a New York or Los Angeles cocktail party, few would dare make a pejorative comment about Barack Obama’s race or Hillary Clinton’s sex. Yet it would be easy to get away with deriding Mike Huckabee’s religious faith.
Liberals believe deeply in tolerance and over the last century have led the battles against prejudices of all kinds, but we have a blind spot about Christian evangelicals. They constitute one of the few minorities that, on the American coasts or university campuses, it remains fashionable to mock.
Scorning people for their faith is intrinsically repugnant, and in this case it also betrays a profound misunderstanding of how far evangelicals have moved over the last decade. Today, conservative Christian churches do superb work on poverty, AIDS, sex trafficking, climate change, prison abuses, malaria and genocide in Darfur.
Bleeding-heart liberals could accomplish far more if they reached out to build common cause with bleeding-heart conservatives. And the Democratic presidential candidate (particularly if it’s Mr. Obama, to whom evangelicals have been startlingly receptive) has a real chance this year of winning large numbers of evangelical voters.
“Evangelicals are going to vote this year in part on climate change, on Darfur, on poverty,” said Jim Wallis, the author of a new book, “The Great Awakening,” which argues that the age of the religious right has passed and that issues of social justice are rising to the top of the agenda. Mr. Wallis says that about half of white evangelical votes will be in play this year.
A recent CBS News poll found that the single issue that white evangelicals most believed they should be involved in was fighting poverty. The traditional issue of abortion was a distant second, and genocide was third.
Look, I don’t agree with evangelicals on theology or on their typically conservative views on taxes, health care or Iraq. Self-righteous zealots like Pat Robertson have been a plague upon our country, and their initial smugness about AIDS (which Jerry Falwell described as “God’s judgment against promiscuity”) constituted far grosser immorality than anything that ever happened in a bathhouse. Moralizing blowhards showed more compassion for embryonic stem cells than for the poor or the sick, and as recently as the 1990s, evangelicals were mostly a constituency against foreign aid.
Yet that has turned almost 180 degrees. Today, many evangelicals are powerful internationalists and humanitarians — and liberals haven’t awakened to the transformation. The new face of evangelicals is somebody like the Rev. Rick Warren, the California pastor who wrote “The Purpose Driven Life.”
Mr. Warren acknowledges that for most of his life he wasn’t much concerned with issues of poverty or disease. But on a visit to South Africa in 2003, he came across a tiny church operating from a dilapidated tent — yet sheltering 25 children orphaned by AIDS.
“I realized they were doing more for the poor than my entire megachurch,” Mr. Warren said, with cheerful exaggeration. “It was like a knife in the heart.” So Mr. Warren mobilized his vast Saddleback Church to fight AIDS, malaria and poverty in 68 countries. Since then, more than 7,500 members of his church have paid their own way to volunteer in poor countries — and once they see the poverty, they immediately want to do more.
“Almost all of my work is in the third world,” Mr. Warren said. “I couldn’t care less about politics, the culture wars. My only interest is to get people to care about Darfurs and Rwandas.”
Helene Gayle, the head of CARE, said evangelicals “have made some incredible contributions” in the struggle against global poverty. “We don’t give them credit for the changes they’ve made,” she added. Fred Krupp, the president of Environmental Defense, said, “Many evangelical leaders have been key to taking the climate issue across the cultural divide.”
It’s certainly fair to criticize Catholic leaders and other conservative Christians for their hostility toward condoms, a policy that has gravely undermined the fight against AIDS in Africa. But while robust criticism is fair, scorn is not.
In parts of Africa where bandits and warlords shoot or rape anything that moves, you often find that the only groups still operating are Doctors Without Borders and religious aid workers: crazy doctors and crazy Christians. In the town of Rutshuru in war-ravaged Congo, I found starving children, raped widows and shellshocked survivors. And there was a determined Catholic nun from Poland, serenely running a church clinic.
Unlike the religious right windbags, she was passionately “pro-life” even for those already born — and brave souls like her are increasingly representative of religious conservatives. We can disagree sharply with their politics, but to mock them underscores our own ignorance and prejudice.
I invite you to comment on this column on my blog, www.nytimes.com/ontheground. On the blog, you can also see readers setting me straight about previous columns and read posts from guest bloggers, including a Chicago teacher, Will Okun, and an aid worker in Bangladesh, Nicki Bennett.
More Articles in Opinion »
President visits Africa
President and Mrs. Bush Discuss
Africa Policy, Trip to Africa
President Bush on Thursday said, "We're going to Benin, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ghana and Liberia. Each of these countries is blessed with natural beauty, vibrant culture, and an unmistakable spirit of energy and optimism. Africa in the 21st century is a continent of potential. That's how we view it. I hope that's how our fellow citizens view Africa. It's a place where democracy is advancing, where economies are growing, and leaders are meeting challenges with purpose and determination."
go to full manuscript
Fact Sheet: U.S. Africa Policy: An Unparalleled Partnership Strengthening Democracy, Overcoming Poverty, and Saving Lives
Friday, February 8, 2008
"A Day in the Life..."
“A day in the life of…”
A peek into the reality of transition-living
For the Cotarelo family
Well, this phrase “a day in the life of,” usually depicts a “regular” or “normal” patterned lifestyle…one of generally predictable events and schedules…the term “transition” thrown into the mix gives a slight deviance to a day’s description…but I will give you a peek.
Background specs… Andy and Alison- We call the Southeastern US “home” but home is really wherever the pillows are! We’ve spent years teaching professionally and two serving at Dakar Academy in Senegal. We are currently back in Thies, Senegal since December and staying until July working in agricultural missions to complete an internship for ECHO (Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization) and as a vision trip for our family in full-time missions work. We are partnered also with UWM and MIS. We have two preschoolers: Saar (4) born in Senegal and Reuben (2) a NC tarheel!
Transition living for us has taken the form of living in eight different places since March ’07 through support-raising and moving to Senegal. We rejoice at the fact – it is a fact to us – that God’s provisions for us are always perfect and perfectly placed. This doesn’t mean it’s easy, but His plans are for us to prosper and have hope for our future.
May I just prelude here a bit with the key acronym TIA, which stand for “This is Africa”! The concept behind TIA is when something doesn’t go as you may think or expect it should is it probably TIA in action…
So the “day”… in a few short stories.
The morning…
Crispy baguettes arrive at the neighborhood boutique stand at around 7am daily and on this particular morning, Andy’s goal was to simply acquire four of these tasty loaves and get home. Well, relationships and greetings are extremely important in African culture and when it comes to “quickly” – personal interactions never really are! So, off to our favorite boutique and the greetings begin…”Hello!!! How are you?? How is your family? How are you?? How is your work?? How are you?? How are your children? How are you?? So, who will you vote for President?? How are you?? Good, Good! And of course all this greeting is going on in multiple languages and with much hand shaking AND with a calm and composed air about things (even though Andy had less than a few minutes to get home and get to his meeting!!) Well, only one baguette was available and so that meant off to another boutique down the sandy street and around the corner. Again the greetings commenced while Andy pushed away his Western mentality of “get in and get out.” So, in the end, the bread was acquired, relationships were strengthened and the team understood why Andy was a bit late to the meeting because…TIA!
The Mid-Day…
One day when Andy was visiting a village, during the mid-day “repose” time the team gathered with the village farmers and Chief under the shade of a large neem tree to discuss agriculture. This particular visit was influential to Andy because the need for an Agriculture Resource Center was expressed directly from the farmers themselves.
It was a dry and dusty time of day and the heaviness of feeling tired and hot from touring their gardens manifested in their hungry stomachs. The air was still, yet the discussion was active. Even the Chief participated by stating that he understands the importance of agriculture to the health of his village. Even though our “normal” schedule is to have lunch at this time, there was no break to eat, in fact, in the village, they only have one meal a day. After the visit was over and the team squeezed back into the SUV, Andy ate and shared his packed lunch. One man accepted some of Andy’s sandwich and in the midst of chewing, asked “is this beef or pork?”…well, Andy wrestled in his mind with the fact that Muslims don’t eat pork and was this man a Muslim???. Answering in truth, “it is pork” Andy experienced a mix of social blunder and reality check as the man expelled the masticated mass into his hand and chucked it out the window. TIA.
The evening…
We’ve been staying in a guest house while renovations occurred on the house we will live in until we leave Thies. One late evening our electricity had been on the fritz and finally went totally out. After some phenagaling, Andy decided to ask for some help and was referred to a trusted electrician. He called him up and within 15 minutes was atop our roof masking-taping the live wires back into place…putting us fully-operational again….and for just 10,000 CFA (about $22). Only here would you feel this sense of true community and wild and sometimes crazy creative problem solving. TIA
The most amazing thing is…is that God is clearly at work herein Africa …even through TIA events…
A peek into the reality of transition-living
For the Cotarelo family
Well, this phrase “a day in the life of,” usually depicts a “regular” or “normal” patterned lifestyle…one of generally predictable events and schedules…the term “transition” thrown into the mix gives a slight deviance to a day’s description…but I will give you a peek.
Background specs… Andy and Alison- We call the Southeastern US “home” but home is really wherever the pillows are! We’ve spent years teaching professionally and two serving at Dakar Academy in Senegal. We are currently back in Thies, Senegal since December and staying until July working in agricultural missions to complete an internship for ECHO (Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization) and as a vision trip for our family in full-time missions work. We are partnered also with UWM and MIS. We have two preschoolers: Saar (4) born in Senegal and Reuben (2) a NC tarheel!
Transition living for us has taken the form of living in eight different places since March ’07 through support-raising and moving to Senegal. We rejoice at the fact – it is a fact to us – that God’s provisions for us are always perfect and perfectly placed. This doesn’t mean it’s easy, but His plans are for us to prosper and have hope for our future.
May I just prelude here a bit with the key acronym TIA, which stand for “This is Africa”! The concept behind TIA is when something doesn’t go as you may think or expect it should is it probably TIA in action…
So the “day”… in a few short stories.
The morning…
Crispy baguettes arrive at the neighborhood boutique stand at around 7am daily and on this particular morning, Andy’s goal was to simply acquire four of these tasty loaves and get home. Well, relationships and greetings are extremely important in African culture and when it comes to “quickly” – personal interactions never really are! So, off to our favorite boutique and the greetings begin…”Hello!!! How are you?? How is your family? How are you?? How is your work?? How are you?? How are your children? How are you?? So, who will you vote for President?? How are you?? Good, Good! And of course all this greeting is going on in multiple languages and with much hand shaking AND with a calm and composed air about things (even though Andy had less than a few minutes to get home and get to his meeting!!) Well, only one baguette was available and so that meant off to another boutique down the sandy street and around the corner. Again the greetings commenced while Andy pushed away his Western mentality of “get in and get out.” So, in the end, the bread was acquired, relationships were strengthened and the team understood why Andy was a bit late to the meeting because…TIA!
The Mid-Day…
One day when Andy was visiting a village, during the mid-day “repose” time the team gathered with the village farmers and Chief under the shade of a large neem tree to discuss agriculture. This particular visit was influential to Andy because the need for an Agriculture Resource Center was expressed directly from the farmers themselves.
It was a dry and dusty time of day and the heaviness of feeling tired and hot from touring their gardens manifested in their hungry stomachs. The air was still, yet the discussion was active. Even the Chief participated by stating that he understands the importance of agriculture to the health of his village. Even though our “normal” schedule is to have lunch at this time, there was no break to eat, in fact, in the village, they only have one meal a day. After the visit was over and the team squeezed back into the SUV, Andy ate and shared his packed lunch. One man accepted some of Andy’s sandwich and in the midst of chewing, asked “is this beef or pork?”…well, Andy wrestled in his mind with the fact that Muslims don’t eat pork and was this man a Muslim???. Answering in truth, “it is pork” Andy experienced a mix of social blunder and reality check as the man expelled the masticated mass into his hand and chucked it out the window. TIA.
The evening…
We’ve been staying in a guest house while renovations occurred on the house we will live in until we leave Thies. One late evening our electricity had been on the fritz and finally went totally out. After some phenagaling, Andy decided to ask for some help and was referred to a trusted electrician. He called him up and within 15 minutes was atop our roof masking-taping the live wires back into place…putting us fully-operational again….and for just 10,000 CFA (about $22). Only here would you feel this sense of true community and wild and sometimes crazy creative problem solving. TIA
The most amazing thing is…is that God is clearly at work herein Africa …even through TIA events…
Thursday, February 7, 2008
"Life has become pointless, will I ever go home again?"
BUKAVU, Claudine Ngomora, 25, fled her home after an attack by people she says are known as the Rasta in February 2007. She has survived on the goodwill of friends and relatives in Walungu Territory in the province of South Kivu, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Claudine recounted her story at a school in the Cagala area of Walungu, where NGO, Malteser International, was distributing food to 3,000 internally displaced persons:
"I have five children, the eldest of whom is eight years old. I live with all the children, together with my husband, with a family that has been kind enough to host us here in Walungu. I left my home in Kaniola five months ago and I cannot say I have had a full stomach since.
"I am always hungry. There is not enough food for me and my children. Hunger and disease are the biggest problems we currently face. I left my banana trees and my cassava crop was just getting ready. I know it was looted by the attackers.
"Nowadays, I find that life has become pointless. I feel so helpless. I wake up in the morning, sweep the house and do general household chores. I wash the children’s clothes with or without soap, and then I take the hoe to till the land my husband has leased on a short-term basis.
"We haven’t harvested anything yet from this small piece of land. That is why we are always hungry. After coming back from the farm, I help the host family with whatever needs to be done; cooking, cleaning, clearing the compound of weeds etc, but I ask myself: For how long will this go on?
"Will I ever go home again? I wish we had peace in Kaniola, in fact in the whole of Congo. I could return home and perhaps then, my first born and second-born, who are of school-going age, could have a chance to go to school. Right now they just hang around the house. I can’t afford their fees, let alone uniforms.
"I miss having a home to call my own."
Js/sr
[ENDS]
[The above testimony is provided by IRIN, a humanitarian news service, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations.]
IRIN welcomes editorial and photographic submissions for inclusion on this page, reserving the right to select and edit as appropriate.
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