MuseumDESCRIPTION:
After learning about the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo and realizing how little others knew about it, Lisa Shannon had to take action. Lisa teamed up with Women for Women International and created Run for Congo Women, a simple and concrete way citizens around the world can raise awareness and funds for women living in war-torn Congo. Last year, she did a lone, thirty mile run, raising $28,000; this year she has organized runs across the world raising thousands of dollars for women in the Congo.
TRANSCRIPT:
JERRY FOWLER: My guest is Lisa Shannon, founder of “Run for Congo Women.” We have talked about Congo a number of times on Voices on Genocide Prevention, and we are returning to that issue today with Lisa. Welcome to the program.
LISA SHANNON: Thank you so much for having me.
JERRY FOWLER: What is “Run for Congo Women?”
LISA SHANNON: Basically, “Run for Congo Women” started last year when I learned about what was happening in the Congo and was just trying to think of a simple thing that I could do to help, and so, I trained and ran the entire length of Portland’s Wildwood Trail which is just over thirty miles, in order to raise sponsorships for women in the Congo through Women for Women International. Over the last year it has grown since I did that initial lone run so that people are able to do that. This year, there have been runs in Portland, Seattle, Washington, D.C., Texas, North Carolina, Berlin, Ireland; there is going to be a run in London, in San Francisco, New York, and Chicago. It is really very grassroots at this point, but it just gives people a very simple, concrete thing that they can do right now to help people in the Congo.
JERRY FOWLER: How does one of the runs work? What do people do?
LISA SHANNON: Some runs are organized runs, and other runs are just individuals training and doing their own runs. Basically, they go out and talk with their community about what is happening in the Congo and raise sponsorships or pledges towards their run, encourage people to sign up to sponsor their own woman through Women for Women International, or raise flat pledges that go towards women’s sponsorship, but there is a really heavy emphasis on educating people about what is happening in the Congo because so many people really have no idea that there is even a war happening there. People pick their own distance, whatever distance they choose to go. Some people walk, some people run, and just go for it basically. There is a woman in Texas who trained all summer in 110 degree heat; she has never done much athletics before in her life, but she has been training to do this, and she will be doing her own run for Congo women next week. Also, in North Carolina, a woman doing it on her own, in Berlin, someone did it on their own, whereas in Portland we had over one hundred people come out. Some people did five miles, some people did nine miles; I did thirty miles again, along with six other people. It is really about encouraging people to do what they can and to focus on what they have control over and what they can contribute without it taking over their lives.
JERRY FOWLER: You mention that one of the goals is education, and we have talked about the Congo a number of times on this program, but can you tell me what is it that you learned about Congo that got you so motivated to be involved in this?
LISA SHANNON: You know, it all started when I was home sick one day and I watched Oprah. She had a twenty minute introduction to what is happening in Congo and what women are going through in the Congo, and what I learned is that over four million people have died in this conflict which makes it the deadliest war since World War II. Basically, it started with the genocide in Rwanda; when that came to its conclusion, militias that were carrying out that genocide were pushed over the border into Congo where they set up camp and started terrorizing the local population. Then other militias were formed to fight those militias, a number of countries got involved, and it erupted into what has been termed “Africa’s First World War.” The United Nations has accused all nations involved of using the war as a cover for looting diamonds, coltan; the rich mineral wealth that Congo possesses. A peace accord was reached in 2003 which has held to some extent, but there is absolutely still violence, and that has led to elections that just happened about a month ago, and things are still pretty precarious there. In terms of what motivated me when I learned about it, I think, one was how is it that four million people have died in this conflict, and yet so few people are talking about it; we just do not hear about it in the media that much—a little bit more now that the elections have taken place, and then really what message that sends to people in the Congo—and I know it is a similar experience to the people that are living through a genocide, in that the message that is reaching people in the Congo by the world not focusing on this is that their lives are really worthless in a lot of ways. I read a story, specifically a woman describing being attacked; militias had attacked her village, and they were dragging her away to the forest where they were likely to keep her as a sex slave, rape her, or kill her, and she was begging for her life, and one of the militia said to her, “Even if I killed you, what would it matter? You are not human; you are like an animal. Even if I killed you, no one would miss you.” It really hit me hard when I read that because I felt like in many ways, the international community has sort of echoed that, that nobody really cares if these people die, and that was what I could not live with. It was really the fact that four million people have died and the fact that it has received so little attention that I decided that I needed to do at least what I could to send a message to people in the Congo, women in the Congo. “Run for Congo Women” has a very simple message that we are sending really, whether people are running one mile or thirty miles, if people raise one sponsorship or fifty sponsorships, the basic message to people in the Congo is that their lives are significant, that we see them and that we hear them and that their children are precious and their lives are precious and we are going to do what we can to help. It is really that simple.
JERRY FOWLER: One thing I wonder though is you are watching Oprah and you learn about this horrendous situation, but it is not totally clear how you got to the point where you felt you needed to take personal responsibility. Is there something in your background that led you to do that?
LISA SHANNON: No, not really, you know, I saw the program and they offered a couple of things you could do, one was sponsor a woman, so I signed up immediately to sponsor two women through Women for Women International, and then they said to educate yourself, so I started reading more, and the more I read the more I felt I could not just let it go. I ran across an article from the Washington Post where they were talking about infant mortality rate effectively. In the war affected areas, six out of ten kids are dying before the age of five which means that most kids are dying before the age of five in Eastern Congo. For me, it really haunted me, and I think when I actually read the personal stories from women who were living through it, I just felt like I could not let it go, and I do not know why. I get asked that question a lot and I am not really sure except that I think it is easy to feel overwhelmed when you read about all the horrific things that are happening around the world; for me, that really changed when I thought of something that I could do, something very concrete and focused on what I had control over. Initially I thought that maybe I could ask my friends to get together, we could throw some sort of fundraising party or do a walk or a run, but nobody had heard about what was happening in the Congo so nobody was really interested. I knew that I was going to have to do something extreme enough to make people around me understand how seriously I took this situation, and that was when I decided to train to run the thirty miles which was really a big deal for me because I was not a hard core runner at all when I started this. Five miles was a long run for me.
JERRY FOWLER: What effect did it have on your friends when they saw that you were going from being a casual runner to this pretty serious commitment?
LISA SHANNON: I was actually overwhelmed with the support I actually received, and not only from my friends, because my expectation at the beginning was that it would just be my immediate circle that would be interested, but I was really struck by how quickly the word spread. My initial goal had been to raise enough sponsorship for one woman to be sponsored for every mile that I ran. The goal was thirty women sponsored. In the end, my lone run raised enough for eighty women to be sponsored, and it was just under $28,000 that I raised on my own. What I found is that when people learned about what was happening, people were actually very anxious to get involved and wanted to help in whatever way they could. I was amazed at how receptive people were; and I was not sure that that was going to happen. Actually, the first four months that I trained, I did not even tell anyone I was doing it because I was afraid I was not going to be able to physically do the thirty miles, but one of the interesting things that happened for me in the process was that I would have never been able to do thirty miles without it being about this, really knowing what women were going through in the Congo, and that no matter what I was going through physically when I was on a long run—if I was in a lot of pain or tired or wanted to stop—I would just have to think about what sort of courage and strength it takes for them to face everyday and attempt to rebuild their lives, and then somehow, whatever pain I was going through physically would sort of transform and it would start to feel more like a privilege; here is my opportunity to carry a little bit of that burden for them, and it did not feel like a sacrifice in any way. Also, one of the interesting things has been since the run being matched with the sisters in the Congo—you correspond with the sisters you are matched with through Women for Women—so I have actually been exchanging letters; myself personally, I have been exchanging letters with thirty women, and I have really been overwhelmed at how much I have ended up learning from the women who we have sponsored because the focus has tended to be, “What can we do for them?” but what those women have given to me in terms of being role models of compassion and resilience has truly been striking. Probably forty percent of the women that we sponsor—that were sponsored through last year’s run—have taken in orphans, and you think about what that means, these are women who, their village has been attacked, their houses have been burned to the ground, their husbands have been killed right in front of them, their children have perhaps been killed; they have had to flee, they are internally displaced peoples, have no means of supporting themselves or their family, but then they see children who have no one, and they make the decision to risk their own family’s health and wellbeing in order to take those children in. The sort of courage that would take, the sort of compassion that that would take is just so touching and so motivating to me. It is almost like an act of defiance because there are certain things, no matter what they are living through, there are certain places in them that no militia, no war can touch, and I really find it just so beautiful and so inspiring for these women to be working so hard to rebuild their lives in the face of the war and so little external reason for hope really, but they do it anyway because they have no choice, and I just have a lot of respect and admiration for these women.
JERRY FOWLER: Can you share with us—you have described in general the situation that women face—but can you share with us any particular story of one of the women you have been supporting and communicating with?
LISA SHANNON: I could share a couple. One is a woman named Jenna Rose who wrote that, just like I said, her village was attacked in the middle of the night, it was a village that is about sixty kilometers out of Bukavu, her husband was killed, her child was killed, they actually cut off her leg and burned her house to the ground, and she moved all of her children to Bukavu where she was living as an internally displaced person until getting involved in the Women for Women program. She has just talked about what it has given her to know that someone on the other side of the world actually cares, that it gives her just a sense of hope for life, and the chance to build a business which is a part of the focus—self-sufficiency is a big focus with Women for Women International’s program—the chance to rebuild her life. You just sense how much that means to her. Another woman talked about how the Interhamwe—which are the militias that carried out the Rwandan genocide and are now in the Congo—abducted her husband, and she was left with a couple of children, and what she has done with the money that she receives—it is very sweet because she really accounts for all of the money that she has been receiving—she has invested in building a business selling charcoals and raising chickens and how she uses money for healthcare, and she is very proud of what she has been able to build. It is really inspiring to hear that sort of thing. Women do not tend to talk about sexual violence that has happened for them because culturally that is not something that is discussed, but I know in groups—Women for Women operates in a way that they have women’s groups and women are able to talk with each other in their community about what they have been through, and I know that when someone has been really isolated after that sort of trauma, it just means the world to be able to connect with other people who have been through the same type of thing and really form a network of support, and often, they end up building businesses together and women’s cooperatives and that sort of thing. It definitely give them some concrete, not only emotional support and rights awareness and that sort of training, but also a lot of specifics in terms of building a business, managing money, and how to move towards self-sufficiency.
JERRY FOWLER: If someone who is listening to this program wanted to organize a Run for Congo, how would they go about it?
LISA SHANNON: They should visit www.runforcongowomen.com where we have a downloadable run-organizer packet and lots of information, or they can e-mail me at lisa@runforcongowomen.com, and we will provide them with lots of support. We are just so excited and so inspired by all the people who have decided to get involved with this. It is such a concrete, simple way to send a message of hope and support to people in the Congo who have basically really been ignored for way too long.
JERRY FOWLER: In addition to helping organize these runs, are there efforts underway to create some broader coalition to address the Congo?
LISA SHANNON: Absolutely; actually that is why I am in D.C. right now. We have been working with the International Rescue Committee, Amnesty International, OXFAM, CARE, World Vision; a lot of major organizations that have been doing work for the Congo are now coming together to form a coalition of organizations that will work to support Congo in its rebuilding process. Now that elections have happened, things are still very fragile, but there is also an enormous amount of hope about where Congo may go and how the international community can actually support Congo in this really historic opportunity to rebuild. The Coalition is coming together to support policy, to encourage governments to increase humanitarian aid, to protect civilians, and support Congo in building a civilian police force, and then also look at the question of economic exploitation and how that has fueled the conflict. We are in the beginning phases right now, but we are also looking to basically put together a grassroots conference in the spring. If anyone listening is interested in potentially attending a grassroots conference that could lead to a grassroots movement around the Congo, that is something we are very focused on wanting to support, so please get in touch as well. There are going to be a lot more concrete things people can do for the Congo in the coming year.
JERRY FOWLER: Lisa Shannon is founder of “Run for Congo Women.” Lisa, thanks so much for taking the time to be with us.
LISA SHANNON: Of course, thank you so much.
