For the second year in a row Lisa Shannon, a local activist in Portland, is running the full route (over 30 miles) of Portland’s Forest Park Wildwood Trail to raise money for the women and children of the Democratic Republic of the Congo who are the victims of a brutal ongoing war that the world is ignoring, despite nearly 5 million deaths. Lisa wants us to notice, and she figured, being the whimpy runner she claims to be, that her friends and friends of friends would indeed take notice if she ran the grueling 30 mile route of the Wildwood Trail, which she calls the Run For Congo Women.

Last year enough people took notice that she was able to raise $30,000, enough to sponsor 80 women and their children. This year, with more people, press (everything from the O in Oregon to the O in Oprah - article to appear in 12/06 issue) and organizations, like Amnesty International taking note of Lisa’s determination and joining the cause, Lisa plans to raise one million.

When reading about the atrocities in the Congo, one can’t help but to take notice. At the same time, many people are becoming numb to the horrific tragedies which are plaguing the world around us. We want to crawl into the comfort of our cacoons where we can happily burn CDs on our computers, talk to friends on our cell phones, e-mail YouTube clips of John Stewart and Stephen Colbert, program our microwaves to perfectly heat up yesterday’s leftovers and kick back with a good DVD. Doing these things bring us comfort and don’t have anything to do with the Congo… or do they?

This may come as a surprise, but all those things listed above have a lot to do with the war in the Congo. Our high tech lives depend on a particular mineral, tantalum (refined from coltan), which is a necessary ingredient in the microchip processers used in all the high tech gadgetry we have come to depend on to run our lives and businesses. Companies like Intel (Oregon’s largest employer,) Nokia, Ericsson, Sony, etc. are all purchasers of tantalum. Like Saudi Arabia is with oil, the Congo is with coltan. The country has the largest reserves of coltan and its trade and the ever increasing demand of it is fueling this brutal war that has pulled in seven neighboring countries, but left the rest of the world silent.

Lisa’s efforts are about helping one woman at a time, but ultimately through her cause she’s showing us the big picture, which is about our role in today’s global conflicts. Everything we buy, from petrol to high tech gadgetry, has a consequence, and the better we understand those consquences the more motivated we are to do something and be a part of the solution. RunForCongoWomen is part of the solution and you can join in by donating (tax deductable) to Lisa’s run, taking part in the run on September 16th, or doing your own run and getting sponsors for it. And make sure when you donate to check with your company on matching funds. Many of the large tech companies that use tantalum just happen to have charity matching programs… so if you’re working out at one of the Intel sites in Hillsboro…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 29th, 2006 at 11:53 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.