Greetings and updates from the DRCongo

We love to hear from Hansen Alumni regarding the exciting projects that you each contribute to in your communities. Below is a update from Hansen alum Lewis Kasindi (2008).

Dear family,

Hope you’re all doing ok.

I’m sorry I’ve been so very much out of touch for a very long time. I’ve been very busy with work lately.

I just wanted to let you know my trip to South Africa went well. The organization that invited me is called Man Up, a global campaign to activate young men and women to tackle the issue of violence against women and girls around the world. It was a neat opportunity to learn from world-renown human rights leaders about how to address that issue. It was a crash training on project development, implementation, and reporting because the organizers are ready to fund grass roots initiatives in the various delegation countries to fight violence against women in their respective communities. In my community, we’ll be working on a project to fight against sexual harassment and exploitation in schools; a very prevalent problem where professors coerce girls into having sexual relations with them in order to receive passing grades. It’s a horrible form of corruption and violence that weakens women and the whole society, especially since it’s something that’s become normal and accepted. Some girls then start to see it as an easy way out – they don’t have to work hard in school if they can just sleep with the professors to get good marks. Then once they get their diploma, although they don’t have the right capacities, they’ll get a job by sleeping with a boss somewhere, and pretty soon no one wants to hire women because they’re known to be lazy and incapable! Something which makes the majority of women in the community completely dependent on men, and consequently helpless victims of domestic and other forms of violence from men.

We’re working on this aspect of violence for a few different reasons. Since we’re young people, working with fellow students and in a context that others came from fairly recently is much more feasible than trying to work in an even more complex field like rape in conflict or domestic violence.

Thanks to HSI on leadership and International Cooperation which provided me with important leadership and International cooperation skills, I’ve been appointed as the Leader of the group of Congolese young men and women who will be running the project in the South Kivu province. I’ll also be serving as a link or contact person between the DRC Delegation and the Man Up.

In brief, this is what I’m working on these days.

Thanks,

Lewis