As we drove up the hill and over the river to Chambucha, we could right away see the Chambucha Rape and Crisis Center with its bright white paint and inviting landscape. The Center that we worked on for the better part of a year to develop with our partners at International Medical Corps. The Center…
Yesterday, our plane touched down in Rwanda. We will spend some time here before departing for Congo. By all measures, Kigali has undergone a clear and dramatic economic reconstruction. Its residents live a relatively western lifestyle in a city full of high-rise buildings, beautiful neighborhoods, gorgeous vistas, and trendy restaurants. Yet, the truth is that…
I write this blog from my flight gate, preparing to depart for a fifth trip to Congo. Although I have traveled frequently to the region over the past decade, my husband, kids, mother, and friends become anxious each time that I leave. When I return, they breathe a collective sigh of relief. It’s true that…
Friends and even my family are incredulous. They ask me, “WHY are you going there?” And they ask, “Why are you going THERE?” This trip to Rwanda and Congo I am embarking upon makes so much sense to me. As a child I was exposed to the horrors of the Holocaust, as a young adult…
Last October, Dr. Mukwege, one of JWW’s partners and the founder of the world-renowned Panzi Hospital in South Kivu, came for a visit in LA. My daughter had the chance to meet him (for which I will be forever grateful). She asked me who Dr. Mukwege was, and why I was spending so much time…
I am ecstatic to be going to Africa with Jewish World Watch as a representative of the Dillon Henry Foundation. My family is from the Democratic Republic of Congo, which provided me with a household to be raised under Congolese traditions and customs as a first-generation African in America. Our background originates from the Bakongo…
It’s a few days before I leave for a much anticipated voyage. Although I have experienced a great deal for a West Los Angeles woman – Peace Corps in the 60s, social worker in the 70s, 80s and 90s, and Ethiopia, India and the former Soviet Union – I know this trip to Congo and…
As the President of Jewish World Watch, I encounter one question, again and again: why do you bother? The question can creep up slowly in conversation. Someone will remark, “Well, is there anything we can really do to help those suffering in Africa? Aren’t you just proposing band aids, not solutions?” Others convey the sentiment…