Medical Volunteers Needed in Tin Mine Area of Congo

The attached message comes via Our Family Adoptions, which is the UMC-affiliated adoption agency with Jamaa Letu orphanage in Congo. (the one we have worked with for years in PNW conference). It highlights efforts to raise awareness for peace with justice in the DRC. If you can share any of it with your UMVIM network, that would be awesome.

We just returned from there in September, looking at a new site for medical teams in partnership with the UMCOR Hospital Revitalization program. We'll be leading a medical team back in spring 2010. Our goal is to take folks who will commit to returning with a team from their region at a later date. But we are limited to 10 participants. If you have one (medical) person from your jurisdiction that might be interested in joining us (with the full intent of returning with a team in the future) please let us know. This person must have international experience, as the conditions are harsh. We currently have one or two spaces remaining. Thanks

Kurt and Jan Kaiser
Retired UMVIM,WJ coordinators
208-263-4094
love2trvl@imbris.com



RE: Breaking the Silence -- Congo Week 2009 October 18th-25th
The second annual Congo Week was started in 2008 to raise awareness of the chain of relationships causing the longstanding violent conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Wars in DRC have killed over 5.4 million people in the last decade, making it the deadliest conflict since WWII. It is a global embarrassment that most of these deaths were not caused by direct violence, but result from a lack of access to clean water and simple sanitation. Throughout eastern DRC, a confusing list of armed rebel groups vie for control of portions the landscape. Each commit horrific atrocities against civilians in campaigns of terror.
They gang-rape women, children and men. They burn villages. They force children to kill their own parents, then enslave the children, using girls for sex, and boys as soldiers and slave laborers.
Control of the region is the goal for these groups simply because it is profitable.

Eastern Congo contains huge quantities of ores of precious metals: cassiterite (tin), columbite-tantalite (coltan),and others. In particular, coltan is used to make the tiny tantalum capacitors that go into electronic devices such as cellphones, laptop computers, video games and DVD players.“Artisanal miners”, enslaved by the rebel forces, dig raw ore from the earth by hand, and 150-lb.
loads are smuggled by porters across poorly-guarded borders into the neighboring countries of Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda. From there, materials are shipped to other countries for refinement, production and final assembly.
Western and European mining companies claim they do not source coltan from Congo, but the ore changes hands so many times throughout the manufacturing process that it is impossible to identify the metal’s true origin. Final manufacturers have plausible deniability, but one statistical analysis concluded it was impossible for Sony to have manufactured all its Playstation units without using Congolese coltan. Ex-British Parliament Member Oona King observed, "Kids in Congo were being sent down mines to die so that kids in Europe and America could kill imaginary aliens in their living rooms.” Every time you upgrade your cellphone, every time you buy a new laptop, you are contributing to the crisis in Congo.
Congo Week (www.congoweek.com) is an effort to raise global awareness of the African War, and to bring daylight to its true causes. On Wednesday, October 21st 2009, from 12 to 1PM worldwide, the organization is promoting a “Cell-Out”; a voluntary boycott of cellphone use.
Our Family Adoptions
www.ourfamilyadoptions.org
Here are some simple actions that can turn the power of these electronics to good:
Educate yourself:
- War, Murder, Rape… All For Your Cellphone.
http://www.alternet.org/story/41477/
- Coltan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coltan
- The War the World Ignores
http://www.sundayindependent.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=3245293
Raise Awareness.
- Put links to Congo Week on your blogs
- Write blog entries about coltan and mining in DRC
Action.- Don’t buy that new cellphone. Use the old one until it breaks.
- Recycle your old cellphone. Where? At your Zoo!
- Recycle all your old electronic devices.
- Write your senator to support SB 891: the Congo Conflict Minerals Act of 2009;
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-891
- Participate in Congo Week events in your community.
- Turn your cellphone off, but change your voicemail message to explain why