Walking in Different Shoes

When my son was a baby, I found that as a new mom, I had many fears. I’m not sure if all moms feel this way or if my concerns came from what I saw as an emergency room nurse. But having seen victims of sudden infant death syndrome, I worried that Nick would die in his sleep. Even though there was less than a 0.2% chance of that happening, I remember feeling such relief when he turned a year old.

When I went to the grocery store, I always had one hand on the cart as he sat in its child seat, afraid that if I let go for a moment, someone would steal him away. Drowning in the pool, getting hit by a car, falling at the playground and breaking an arm . . . a mother’s worry never ends.

Recently, I heard a mother say (while speaking on the news after being forced from her home in the Congo): “The {refugee} camp is so crowded and I fear that my child will get sick and die.”

And this past week (on the BBC), I heard another mother say, “we have no food, I just lost one child and I am afraid that I will lose the others too.” For a photo journal of her story, click here.

On November 13^th, I received this email and because I’m concerned, I wanted to share it with you:

Dear Shellee,

At this moment we stand on the precipice of a humanitarian catastrophe. Fighting in the eastern portion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) endangers the women we serve.

War is once again uprooting women from their stable lives and estimates are that as many as 50% of the women we serve in the Goma region of the DR Congo have been displaced – for many this is not their first time on the run.

Yesterday, our DRC Country Director Christine Karumba reported that, “Many of the women in our program are scared. For them it [renewed fighting] means renewed loss of property, becoming displaced again, and the fear of horrifying sexual violence. They are also losing any confidence in a stable peace in Congo.”

“More than half of our women are missing classes in our training program in Goma,” Christine reported to our staff this week. “Due to the volatile situation they are unable to reach our training facilities.”

Christine also reports that mothers in the region are opting to keep their children home from school as well. Women have chosen to keep their loved ones close rather than put them at the mercy of the marauding bands of soldiers.

“We worry that many of our women have been displaced and lost all their belongings - or, even worse, have once again become victims of violence. We will find them as soon as the situation allows us to go to their homes and help them to reintegrate into the program,” says Christine. 

What you can do today
With your help, Women for Women International is preparing to respond to the needs of thousands of women who are threatened by the fighting and are in urgent need of assistance.

“We will reach out to more women including those who now live indisplacement camps in and around Goma and hope to offer sponsorship to the most vulnerable among them,” says Karen Sherman, Executive Director of Global Programs with Women for Women International. “Since most women are not able to come to us, we will go to them and offer assistance through financial aid and on-site training.” 

This situation may seem overwhelming, but you can take action now for the women of the DR Congo. A contribution now will help ensure that we can go from home to home of every one of our Goma sisters and offer them comfort and help them rebuild – yet again.  We will seek to relocate women from our program in the displacement camps as well as enroll new women we find there who have been affected by the crisis.

The direct assistance will help them to pay for food, medicine, and other lifesaving needs. Since the latest outbreak of violence more than 250,000 people have been forced to leave their homes over the last few weeks alone, bringing the total number of displaced to more than 1.2 million.

We will keep you updated. Visit www.womenforwomen.org/congo for alerts. Please help us continue to deliver a lifeline to these women. Contribute today.

Gratefully,  

Zainab Salbi
Founder and CEO     

P.S. Now is the time to write a letter to your sponsored sister with your message of support. We will do our best to get it to her in these difficult times.

I think that no matter where we live, as moms we share similar concerns for our children. We worry about their health, their safety and their happiness. I see these women speak about their fears in interviews on the news and it takes me back to when my son was young. Though we are walking in different shoes, I feel a connection to them. Their fears haunt me in the same way as my own.