Excuse me, but THIS is a problem
via the New York Times.
“Though Congo’s civil war supposedly ended four years ago, and the nation’s first democratic elections in more than four decades are scheduled for Sunday, the fighting and chaos here continue to kill about 1,250 people each day, mostly from hunger and disease. In all, nearly four million people have died as a result of the conflict since 1998, almost half of them children under the age of 5, according to the International Rescue Committee.”
“About 30,000 children have been forced into militias, while untold thousands of girls have been raped, according to the Unicef report. Children labor under toxic conditions in gold and diamond mines. Orphans choke the streets of Kinshasa, the capital, bedraggled platoons in Congo’s vast army of want.”
“The consequence is that a child dies in Congo almost every two minutes, mostly from preventable causes.”
I read this and I am so upset about it, yet I feel so helpless at the same time. I want to help be part of the solution (like I do for most stories I read like this) but I have no idea how. Grr. i don’t understand how we can turn our eyes from things like this, but I don’t have any solutions either. Is it okay that I’m at least aware this exists? That I at least don’t pretend the world is fine? That I care? That despite inability, the desire is there? Right now I have to think so, because I have no outlet for it otherwise at this point.
July 30th, 2006 at 4:29 pm
*sigh*
i know. i relate totally.
July 30th, 2006 at 9:13 pm
thanks for the vocalization.
i’m in the same place.
it is there. it pisses me off. i’m ready for justice.
but i’m just “here in america.” no gun. no legislation. no way to change every heart that needs changing in order for something to be done about the little girl who was robbed of her innocence on a hillside without anyone to care.
i hate that this is the world we live in. i hate that, like you, i am aware… and so limited in/by my awareness.
thanks for, at least, being aware. may our kids grow up with more power than us to be right and to do right. may they shine brighter with everything that is good in this world.