CAMPUS NEWS - Durham College and UOIT

By Asmahan Garrib
Chronicle Staff
They shoved grass in Lumo’s
mouth and tied her with her
clothes. Afterwards, she couldn’t
walk so they used her clothes to
drag her along the ground. A hunter
found her the next day. Lumo
was hospitalized for three years.
After nine operations she still has
a fistula, a hole between her birth
passage and internal organs. Her
husband left her and got his dowry
back.
Lumo is just one of more than
200,000 women who have been
raped in the Democratic Republic
of the Congo since an ongoing
conflict started in 1996. Her story
was one of the many told during
the Women in the Congo Teach-In,
which captivated an audience of
eight who sat in to learn about the
atrocities and struggles millions of
women suffer through each day.
Approximately 40 women are
raped every day in southern Kivu,
a province in eastern Congo. Almost
50 per cent of those sexual
assault survivors are children.
“One of the ways the soldiers
maintain power is to victimize
women over and over again,” said
Allison Alexander, co-ordinator
of the Women’s Centre. “It’s a sick
sense of power that they must
maintain. It’s also a way of traumatizing
the man, having to see
his wife or mother or sister raped.
Then the man leaves the woman,
so she is victimized and victimized
again.”
In a presentation that included
a first-hand video illustrating the
horrors these women endure, a
PowerPoint presentation detailing
the history of violence and a group
discussion to find ways to help,
this year’s Women’s Centre cause
brought awareness to a topic few
people in this part of the world
know much about.
“We want people to be aware
of what’s happening to women in
the Congo,” said Stephanie Armstrong,
a first-year Human Services
Worker student and one of
the presenters of the teach-in. “We
think people know, but not to the
extent of how bad it really is.”
The Democratic Republic of the
Congo is the third largest country
in Africa, situated north of Angola
and Zambia. It has been ravaged
by conflict since the 1880s.
“Women and girls are feeling
the brunt of this war,” said Viola
Morrison, a first-year Human Services
Worker student and one of
the presenters of the teach-in. “But
the root of this conflict goes back
to the 1800s when the Democratic
Republic of the Congo was ruled
by leaders who didn’t have the
rights of the people at heart.”
Belgian King Leopold II took
control of the Congo in 1880, exploiting
its natural resources--tin
and rubber. Violence, forced labour
and starvation caused the
death of millions of people. After
gaining its independence in 1960
the Democratic Republic of the
Congo faced a nationwide army
mutiny.
Joseph Desire Mobutu took
power of the Congo in 1965 and
in 1994 provided a safe haven for
the militia that directed Rwanda’s
genocide. This provoked Rwanda
and Uganda to invade Congo in
1996 in pursuit of the Rwandan
militia, pushing out Mobutu and
allowing Congolese rebel Laurent-
CAMPUS NEWS
Desire Kabila to take power.
“Between 1996 and 2002, the
two massive wars fought in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo
were arguably the world’s deadliest
since WWII,” said Morrison.
Since the 2002 peace agreement,
conflict has erupted in eastern
Congo in a battle for control of
natural resources.
“Eastern Congo right now is the
most dangerous place in the world
to be a woman or girl,” said April
Witt, first-year Health Services student
and a presenter at the teachin.
“Doctors without Borders has
stated that 75 per cent of all the
rape cases it has treated are in the
Congo.”
The presentation started with a
YouTube video titled The Greatest
Silence: Rape in the Congo. Guests
at the teach-in watched as Congolese
women and children recounted
their stories of rape and torture.
One woman recounted being
raped in front of her children, then
the soldiers shooting her children
The Chronicle March 17, 2009 7
Congo teach-in raises awareness
By Melissa Bies
Chronicle Staff
Every year, thousands of students graduate with a business
degree or diploma in Ontario and begin searching for
a job in their field.
As resumes pour in to potential employers, what makes
one student’s credentials looks more appealing than the
others?
Jake Simmons believes that what helped him obtain an
exciting, challenging and well-paying entry-level marketing
position was the Durham College Marketing Competition
(DCMC).
Simmons graduated from Durham College’s three-year
Business – Marketing program last year. In both his second
and third years, he competed and placed in the annual
competiton.
“Competing in the DCMC is something that can really
Photo by Asmahan Garrib
WOMEN HELPING WOMEN: First-year Human Services Worker students Viola Morrison,
Ashley King, Stephanie Armstrong (back row), Sarah Ojha and April Witt (front
row) with Women’s Centre co-ordinator Allison Alexander (on right).
help you stand out in the crowd to potential employers.
You gain experience and have something for your portfolio
that looks great to pull out in an interview. It’s something
above and beyond going to class.”
The DCMC is a full-day competition that takes place
Friday, March 20. In teams of five, Marketing students
must come up with a product or service based on a chosen
industry. Teams must consist of at least one first- or
second-year student. They must create a sales pitch and
business plan and present it to a panel of judges.
The judges will have “money” to invest in products or
services, and will allocate amounts of their choice to the
teams based on the team’s pitches. At the end of the day
the team that has accumulated the most money from the
judge panels wins.
“Prizes are usually gift certificates from local businesses,
but the biggest prize is bragging rights,” said Simmons.
“You are competing against your classmates, the people
who you sit beside every day. It gets very competitive.”
and demanding she eat them.
Alexander found the story of
Eve, a six-year-old girl, especially
touching.
“She’s never even been hugged,”
said Alexander. “No one wants to
be around her because she smells
like pee.”
Eve constantly smells like pee
because she has a fistula that
causes incontinence, according to
fistulafoundation.org. It’s a common
result of rapes in the Congo.
“When the tyrants sexually assault
the women, they insert their
guns into them, which damages
their uterus, bladder and intestines,”
said Alexander.
In addition to traumatic fistulae,
the sexual violence also causes
genital lesions, unwanted pregnancies
and sexually transmitted
diseases.
PANZI, the only hospital in the
Congo able to perform an operation
to fix fistulae and vaginal reconstruction
is often a week-long
walk for many of the women in
need. After the operation, the
women are provided with only a
few days of rest in the hospital before
having to give up their bed to
another woman in need.
“They are having major surgery
and having only a few days rest
and then having to get up and walk
with nowhere to go,” said Alexander.
These women have nowhere to
go afterwards because their husbands
and families disown them,
and feel the raped women bring
bad luck, said Armstrong.
The video also showed Congolese
men explaining what they
would do if they saw their wives
or mothers being raped. Their response
was a resounding “nothing.”
“The boys are being taken out
of their homes so young and being
taught to rape and kill,” said
Armstrong. “It’s a vicious cycle and
the country’s so corrupt. Even if
the men committing these crimes
were penalized they could just
bribe their way out of it.”
The teach-in educated everyone
who attended in ways Canadians
must help.
“We want to make people aware
that they can help,” said Witt. “It
doesn’t seem like we can from so
far away, but we can.”
The Women’s Centre is calling
on all students to help. All the
proceeds from a bake sale held by
the S.A. and the proceeds from the
tickets to the Vagina Monologues
on March 11 and 12 will go to
help build hospitals and transition
houses for women in the Congo,
according to Alexander.
Students can also compel world
leaders to assist.
By sending a letter to the Canadian
Minister of Foreign Affairs,
Lawrence Cannon, writing a letter
to Durham’s MPP, Christine Elliot
or the president of the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, Joseph
Kabila, Canadians can urge them
to stop the violence against women.
Anyone interested in helping
should visit vday.org, raisehopeforcongo.org
or womenthrive.org.
“They have so much further to
come than we even realize to get
to where we are,” said Ashley King,
first-year Health Services Worker
student and a presenter at the
teach-in.
“Can you imagine if this was
happening in our country and no
one would help us?”
Marketing themselves to the top of the pack
After the teams present their work in a dragon’s den
format – just the presenter and the panel of judges – they
attend a dinner and awards banquet.
This year, Simmons was asked to be on the panel of
judges.
“I still stay in contact with some of my professors and
was honoured to be asked to come back to the competition
this year as a judge,” he said.
He said the best piece of advice for this year’s competitors
is to be prepared.
“If you’re serious about the competition, it really is quite
a lot of work,” he said. “Do your research and be ready for
any questions the judges may have for you. Make sure
you utilize each person’s strengths in your group – for
example, some people are better presenters than others,
but others may be more computer-savvy and be able to
spruce up your visual presentation. And know your stuff.
Believe in what you are presenting, be passionate, and be
professional yet personable.”