#4 SAWA highlights the heroes of The Panzi Hospital in The DRC

It is easy to focus on the negative. You don’t have to look too hard. The news on TV and in the papers is usually the bad kind, and if you can stomach it, it can leave you with a pretty grim view of our world and the individuals within it. It takes courage to be positive and hard work to share good news – which is what makes SAWA so special.

We feed off of the courage of those individuals out there making a difference and spreading positive changes within their communities and beyond. We aren’t here to ignore the bad news or the awful situations; we are here to show the world the remarkable ways in which people are dealing with awful situations.

Right now the situation for thousands of women in the eastern part of The Democratic Republic of Congo is truly awful. The violence being inflicted upon women by various militia groups is the most horrific imaginable. Women – from the ages of 6 to 75 – are being brutally raped and tortured by gangs of men to the point where their digestive systems are beyond repair. In October 2007, The New York Times published an article detailing the situation there: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/07/world/africa/07congo.html

But even in such horrific circumstances there are individuals providing hope and strength to their communities. The Panzi Hospital, (created in 1999 with the help of the Swedish International Development Agency), is the only place in South Kivu where thousands of women have been able to receive proper medical treatment for the kind of damage they have suffered. The individuals who work at Panzi Hospital, who are able to provide strength and healing for their communities despite all the negativity they see on a daily basis, are truly remarkable. Director Denis Mukwege performs on average 6 surgeries a day, working tirelessly to help the women of his community, while training new doctors to be able to perform the surgeries. He has a vision for a Women’s Center to be built alongside the hospital, which would provide counseling services as well as educational programs enabling the women to be reintegrated into society as financially independent individuals. He has witnessed some soul wrenching scenes and yet manages to find the strength to stay and help.

In the past few years, The Panzi Hospital has been able to receive some valuable support from a Toronto based organization called S.A.F.E.R. (Social Aid For the Elimination of Rape). S.A.F.E.R. have managed to send two shipments of two years worth of medical supplies to Panzi, and they are currently working on being able to send a third shipment in the spring of 2008. To learn more about them please visit their website at: http://www.saferworld.ca/ To donate e-mail them at donate@saferworld.ca

At SAWA we want to highlight these amazing individuals around the world who are making positive changes in some of the hardest places to be positive. It is vital that their stories be heard and that they are given all the support we are able to give. Their lives are a testament to the strength of the human spirit and they embody all that we could ever hope to be as leaders.

"Seek the good, the positive, the creative..."
Swami Radha

#3 Why SAWA focuses on the poorest countries

SAWA theme: Extreme Poverty

Poverty exists all over the world – in every country, and every city. But extreme poverty reserves its clutches for the people of the poorest and most underdeveloped countries. It is estimated that approximately 1 billion people in the world today live on less than $1 a day. Those living in extreme poverty are literally ‘the poorest of the poor’, and lack access to the most basic of human needs – such as food, clean water, proper shelter, clothing, medication, sanitation, and education. Extreme poverty brings along with it a list of other environmental and health problems. For example, the lack of clean drinking water is the number one reason for why 50% of Africans suffer from water related diseases such as cholera and infant diarrhea.

Tackling the issue of extreme poverty is a huge task, as it is a multifaceted issue, but change starts in each country with those courageous and inspiring individuals who, through their leadership and vision, create hope in seemingly hopeless situations. Their ability to create positive change – whether it be through providing a safe community environment for orphaned children (as the Fundación Niña Maria does in Columbia), or training the orphaned youth in Rwanda in employable skills so that they can support their siblings (as ASOLATE does) – is a testament to the strength of the human spirit.

SAWA chooses to focus its attention on the poorest countries of the world not only because the people there live in the harshest of human conditions and are in the most need, but because the stories of the individuals there who, despite everything, can and do gather the strength to lead, to give hope, to provide healing to their communities are the most inspiring of all. If they, who have next to nothing can, out of sheer determination, passion, and vision, create positive changes, then surely we can too.

And so SAWA continues to search out and give voice to those heroes whose stories remind us that anything is possible as long as there is someone to imagine the possibilities. After all, “The First Step To Better Times Is To Imagine Them.”

“There is absolutely

No inevitability

As long as there is a willingness

To contemplate what it happening”

– Marshall McLuhan