Tag: conflict

  • Day 24~ April 24th~ Congo

    Coming from Lebanon, I get asked a lot about the civil war that ravaged my country for so many years and with that question there is always a request to clarity what the war is all about there. On many occasions I find myself likening the war to a board game. The board being the…

  • Day 23~ April 23rd~ Congo

    It is difficult to imagine in our day of gadgets and the time of i-this and i-that available to everyone in the west even small children, that in some places like Congo, this is not the case at all. And because of that, the children I met often asked me to take a message back…

  • Day 20~ April 20th~ Congo

    One of the most precious gifts we humans receive upon our birth is the gift of choice and free will… We have the faculties that allow us to think, evaluate, compare, investigate, evaluate and then based upon our findings make an informed decision. It is a the first and most important principle for our freedom.…

  • Day 19~ April 19th~ Congo

    A small boy, on the run from Rwanda, pausing in a medical center in Goma, hiding behind the folds of a UNICEF tent, his life will never be the same again… While days before he was just a little boy, living in a village, part of a family, living a somewhat normal life, today he…

  • Day 18~ April 18th~ Congo

    Being born into conflict, struggling to survive, finding themselves short of even the most basic of life’s necessities; what kind of future are these children looking forward to having? If children are the hope for our future, if they will be the beacon for much needed change to come, then don’t they deserve much more…

  • Day 17~ April 17th~ Congo

    They say that only when you come so close to losing something do you value it the most… That is definitely something I have witnessed in Congo and growing up in a Lebanon during the civil war. War can make you more sensitized to the value of life, so when you cry, you cry more…

  • Day 16~ April 16th~ Congo

    Some images print themselves in our minds and on our hearts because they affect us beyond the surface of visual impression. They go deep, they etch a mark on our soul… If you were to ask me what moment in my journey to Congo was the most haunting, I would say this one when I…

  • Day 13~ April 13th~ Congo

    “We want peace in the world”… Is that too much to ask? Every child I spoke to in Congo told me the same thing, responded the same way when I asked them what their message to the world was, what was it they wished for the most… ” I want to live a peaceful life”…

  • Day 12~ April 12th~ Congo

    It was so clear to me the day I saw these children dancing for hours, that Africa, the land, radiates and infuses its people with rhythm. Moving seems to be the most natural thing to them and they move with a lightness and swiftness that are most beautiful to witness. These children are young demobilized…

  • Day 11~ April 11th~ Congo

    When I knew I would be meeting child soldiers in Congo, I had no frame of reference as to what I would be meeting. I had seen some snapshots sent to me before my trip, I had read the statistics, the articles, seen photos, but all of that did not prepare me for my first…