Little Ruben, who has been living in a shelter in Brooklyn, had one dream – to go to football camp. With the help of dear friend Rich Eisen, we arranged for him to go to football camp this summer and had Chad Ochocinco Johnson (Ruben’s idol) come to our event to surprise Ruben.

Watching this video and weeping once again gave me that positive re-enforcement that I so desperately needed. I think for those of us that work with children on a daily basis and have suffered the recent slings and arrows of the economic crisis, especially in the NGO arena, we sometimes feel that no matter how hard we work and no matter how much we give that somehow it’s never enough. I wake in the morning and lay my head on the pillow at night thinking about the kids we work with and end up constantly asking myself how I can do more. This beautiful story is just a reminder to me and to the rest of the world that to help one child at a time is okay. I’m happy to report that Ruben and his mom have moved into transitional housing. Children Mending Hearts has just provided them with a computer and tutoring for Ruben. Ruben has been accepted into three charter schools and will be attending Deion Sanders football camp the second week of July.

Peace,

Lysa

We were about four blocks from our hotel, when we heard a deafening explosion that sounded as if it was merely steps away. We learned the next day on CNN that there were three separate grenade attacks less than a mile from our hotel. Most Rwandans we spoke to felt it was the work of the FDLR. Welcome to Kigali, thanks to the FDLR.

Our workshop in Bukavu was immensely successful mostly due to my hero Christine Karumba and the amazing team at Women for Women International. We painted butterflies, wrote letters, taught jewelry making, and happily delivered hundreds of t-shirts made by homeless children in the United States. We danced furiously and sang until we were hoarse. But most importantly, we laughed with total abandon. To see a child’s tears replaced with a smile, and witness joy instead of sadness is a sight for which there are no words. We had the honor of working with over 1,400 women and children.

I would be remiss if I didn’t thank my rock star team, Samantha Coker, Vance Holmes and John Canning. They had my back and my blind side. The one lesson that I will take away from my trip this year is simple: I, an American woman, am no different from a Congolese, Iranian, Bosnian, or an Israeli woman. We are all equally the same. We are global sisters united. We must protect, love, honor and fight for each other. I will continue to speak out and fight for my sisters suffering in Congo. I do this because I am responsible for them, just as they are for me.

I beg all of you to join me and go to Women for Women International and sponsor a Congolese woman. For literally dollars a month you can change a life forever. I know some will find me foolish, the founder of another charity who desperately needs funds trumpeting for another organization. But partnership is what Children Mending Hearts stands for; it is at our very core. We have to help each other, lift each other up and do the work together. I believe in my heart if you do the work the rest will follow. So I beg of you, support WfWI, and my Congolese sister Rose Mapendo of the inspiring Mapendo International, and all the other wonderful NGO’s, which you can find under Our Angels on our website.

My work is finished here, for now. I will go home. I will return to my life. I will continue on my journey, and I will never forget the five women outside the gate at Panzi Hospital. Waiting.

Peace,

Lysa Heslov

We were met by our guide who proceeded to show us around the hospital. There were hundreds of women everywhere. Their pained gazes looked as if they were living in some horrible nightmare; the kind of nightmare where one never wakes up. They were.

We walked over to a blue and white building where I saw 25 to 30 beautiful children. Once they saw me, they began to sing loudly and proudly. They were laughing and smiling and, after the scene I had recently witnessed at the entrance, seeing the kids was helping me return to some form of reality. Then, our guide turned to us and said as casually as if giving us directions to the nearest gas station, “These are the children of rape. Their mother’s are either dead or have abandoned them because they cannot bear the sight of them.” I wondered to myself what it must feel like to give birth to your rapist’s child. I looked into their little eyes and prayed. I prayed that they would never learn the hideous truth. I hoped they would never hear that their fathers were monsters.

We went into a part of the clinic to meet with the women and children. I held a child that I did not think would live another hour. He was two-years-old yet resided in the body of a six-month-old infant. He was severely malnourished and gasping for air. I just kept looking into his eyes and taking deep breaths so I wouldn’t weep. I was not about to cry in front of them, and I didn’t. My tears meant nothing.

Next we went over to meet with Dr. Denis Mukwege, who does the fistula repair at Panzi. I was so looking forward to seeing him because we hadn’t seen each other in a year, and Dr. Denis is one of the few people who brings me to my knees. If through my work I can become half the person he is, my life would be complete.

When I walked into his office, I was thrilled to see the award we had bestowed him with last year. It was prominently displayed on his bookshelf next to his crowded desk. I walked over to give him a hug and could immediately sense that something had changed dramatically since the last time I had seen him. He looked tired, immensely sad, and utterly beaten down. He shared with me that he didn’t know how much longer he and his staff could go on. He said at least nine newly raped women were coming in every day. He would operate on a young girl only to have her return a few months later having been re-raped. He said he was tired, burnt out and felt like giving up. I asked him what he needed, to give me take-actions so I could help. He looked at me squarely in the eyes and said, “We need Peace.”

He told me the story of a young girl who was six when she was first raped and brought to the hospital. She came back to Panzi a few years later after having been taken into the hills and gang raped by several men. He operated on her again and she began to recover. After her recovery, it was time for her to go, as there is always a constant shortage of beds at Panzi. There were still the women waiting outside the gate. The newcomers. When she was told it was time to leave she grabbed onto him with every ounce of strength she possessed. She pleaded with him to let her stay. She cried and begged for her life, but she had to go because they had to make room for others. Dr. Mukwege learned that she was killed last week. His eyes began to fill with tears. His raw emotion had just given me the permission that I desperately needed. At that moment, I began to weep and I feared the tears would never stop.

I gave Dr. Mukwege a donation from Children Mending Hearts. It was not nearly enough, but all we could afford. I left Panzi and promised Dr. Mukwege that when I put my head on my pillow that night and prayed, I would pray for the women waiting outside the gate, pray for the dying baby I had just held, pray for the young girl who had begged for her life and lost, and most importantly, I promised him I would pray for peace.

Peace Please!

Lysa

“To Excellent President Barack Obama, Hello! I am Faraja Muhigirwa and I would like to tell you somethings. Many greetings to you, your children and your wife. I am Congolese. I would like to tell you that every day our country is troubled by war, but I do not like war in my life. That is why I want to study for my country so as one day I solve my country, the country of my parents.

I like very much my country. I will study for my country, and by the will of God, I will succeed it because there is an expression in French which says, in forgiving one becomes a blacksmith. Dear Honorable President of America, this is what I wanted to tell you. With love, Faraja.”

At first I couldn’t really understand the blacksmith quote, but the more I thought about it during the day and discussed it with our team, I began to realize that Faraja was simply saying, “Forgive others and you will be able to bend steel.”

Big love to Lynne & Sophia Heslov, and the amazing and heartwarming Archer families, for the 300 pairs of shoes that we distributed today. I have enclosed a picture of a little girl receiving her new pink sequin slippers. I will never forget the enormous smile on her face when she was presented with her shiny new shoes.

Peace,

Lysa

We arrived promptly at 7am and began our workshop with the children whose dark eyes betrayed a sadness and hardship; children who had witnessed entirely too much evil for their young and supposedly innocent ages. We had 70 to 80 children come in at 45-minute intervals all day in order to accommodate everyone. We danced, we painted, and we wrote letters to President Obama. Our letters begged for the end of genocide, rape and war.

Sadly, human hurricanes, tsunamis, and earthquakes occur everyday in Congo. Silent murderous storms, floods of sexual violence, and earthshaking murders are the norm. Women are not seen as human beings in this country, rather as animals degraded and demoralized – stripped of all in brutal and unimaginable manners.

As if we didn’t need to be reminded of the complete and utter lawlessness of the Congo, at one point during our workshop today, Vance, one of our cameramen, told me he was going to walk up the hill to get a shot of the SOS sign. In the midst of focusing his camera, he was suddenly surrounded by the Congolese military who attempted to drag him to their waiting vehicle. He managed to get away from them and quickly darted back towards the orphanage, with the military in quick pursuit. He luckily was able to make it to the director’s office that came to his aid and told the men in green that he was indeed there working with the orphanage.

Then, upon returning to our hotel we learned that we had lost yet another room, which had been taken over by the government. We have now lost two rooms and are residing as if we are in some depressing sleep-away camp with duffel bags packed to the ceiling.

Our sponsors, the awe-inspiring Women For Women International, have been truly phenomenal in not only keeping us safe, but also showing us how an NGO can successfully empower others towards a more positive and fruitful future.

Tomorrow we will be working with 500 children as well as 400 mothers. I am sad and tired and incredibly emotional, but when I think about what the poor souls with whom I have had the recent pleasure of working are going through, I instantly feel immensely guilty for even thinking about myself at this time. I am going to sleep now. I am going to weep and I am forever going to treasure my life, my friends, my husband, and my children, and as God is my witness, I will never take one moment of my life for granted again. Ever.

Peace,

Lysa

Our bumpy seven-hour ride from Rwanda to Congo was majestic, yet I couldn’t help thinking to myself I was on the road to hell.  When we crossed the border we were told to get out of our jeep as the customs officials wanted us to physically walk across the border. I can’t really express what I was feeling at that moment, but instantly recalled a situation that had arisen when we arrived in Rwanda with sixteen incredibly large heavy duffel bags the day before.

We were stopped in customs and one of the airport managers came over to us and asked to see a receipt and papers for all the supplies we were bringing with us, at which time I told her that these were donations and that I was there to work with the children and I didn’t have any paperwork. Several minutes later, I could tell she and I were at a standoff and, after having been in the same clothes for three days not to mention the sheer exhaustion, I feared that at any second I was going to say something I regretted and find myself in even more trouble when I turned to her and simply said “I’m going to Congo and these supplies are for the children of Bukavu.”  Suddenly, she turned to me with the warmest eyes I think I’ve ever seen and said, “go ahead and have a good trip.“

Tomorrow I will have the honor of working with 600 kids from the SOS orphanage in Bukavu. I will save my tears for tomorrow night when I am alone as my tears are cheap here, and I have keep my razor sharp focus on my mission:  the children.

Peace,
Lysa Heslov

We had our first “Please Mr. President” workshop for less fortunate children last Saturday. It was incredibly magical yet heartbreaking. We heard many stories. Stories of loss, sadness, and tragedy. I spent time with children whose eyes had seen entirely too much for their young age. Moms came in beaten down and broken up. We never uttered the words homeless, we never took pity or felt sorry. We, the volunteers, celebrities, artists and teachers and less fortunate all became one. Because we all knew. We knew that we were all the same, separated only by circumstance and geography. One child whose mother told me he never smiled, danced and laughed furiously with me to Michael Jackson (RIP). One young mother who had just come to the mission the day before with her three day old newborn wouldn’t look me in the eye and made it abundantly clear that she was only staying for a few minutes, ended up staying for the entire day. She painted beautiful pictures and learned how to make jewelry. I never asked why she was there. I just told her I was happy she was. Children left knowing their voices were heard and felt hope. Hope can last a long time! Our job was done..

Peace,
Lysa

What most touched me was that Sienna wanted to get on a plane and go find out for herself, to travel, without question, to one of the most heinous and dangerous places in the world for a woman to be at this moment. She was ready to buy a ticket, no questions asked. She wanted to help. She wanted to educate herself so she could speak with knowledge, alternately raising awareness to those in need.

Sienna was doggedly determined. We just had to find a way to get her into Congo – safely and quickly. I was not able to go on this trip as I had just returned from Congo, am in the middle of writing my masters thesis, working on my next trip, and most importantly, I could not leave the two little girls who call me mom and hop on a plane so soon after my last trip.

We came up with a couple of different NGOs that could get her there and after some research, we decided on the International Medical Corps. I had visited a couple of their clinics during my last trip, and coincidentally the timing would work out perfectly. Additionally, my husband Grant and I had highlighted the IMC at our last event. We arranged for Sienna to meet with the IMC, thus began her journey.

David Serota and I then met with my pals at TakePart as we thought it would be nice to do a video looking through a woman’s eyes. We wanted to capture her perspective while in Congo, where in some villages, two out of every three woman are raped and tortured. David’s outline was brilliant and TakePart, as usual, was supportive and enthusiastic.

We then decided to have Sienna hand out Children Mending Heart’s T-shirts to the children in the camps. This was immensely important to me as the children in Congo designed the shirts during my last trip and to have them have a clean shirt that they actually designed so touched my heart.

Please forgive me if I get so worked up over a T-shirt as I am acutely aware that my feeble attempts to bring some joy to these children will not solve the bigger problem. But if I can just make one child smile or laugh or feel some modicum of hope, then my job is done.

Although it’s vitally important to throw money at the problem, it’s equally crucial to throw advocacy and support to the solution. It’s about creating the infrastructure and addressing the all too important conflict minerals, which in my opinion is the real Mcguffin. I thank my friend John Prendergast for educating and calling me to action on behalf of conflict minerals. Every time I pick up my cell phone, I suddenly feel an uncomfortable lump rise in my throat.

Thank you all for your amazing support and good wishes and please get busy with our new campaign “Please Mr. President’. We will be traveling to eight cites in the US to hold workshops with homeless children, ending in Congo. Get on the Peace Train, and let us know if you would like us to visit your hometown.

Peace,
Lysa Heslov

(Images courtesy of Dokument Films)

We left Bukavu for Chambucha on Wednesday morning at six. The journey was everything we had been warned about and more: muddy roads that could swallow a truck, flat tires, makeshift bridges, military checkpoints, very young men with very large weapons. It was a six-hour drive through Kahuzi Biega National Park and north to Chambucha. The scenery was breathtaking. Thick dense jungle, bamboo trees and wild orchids, monkeys, every shade of green you could possibly imagine. Enormous spider webs and their equally enormous creators, such a change from the urban feel of Bukavu. There were children swimming in the river that borders the forest where the FDLR (Rwandan rebel group) are in hiding, and where the FARDC (Congolese government troops) have taken positions along the road, weapons trained at their sides. And that’s what’s so confusing about this place..utter purity and beauty juxtaposed with brutal violence.

So we headed to an area engulfed by guerrilla activity. As a result tens of thousands of people have had to flee their homes in neighboring villages and have been essentially herded into Chambucha. The road we are on ends there, and we are received like heroes. The people had been told beforehand of our arrival and hundreds turned up to clap and cheer and sing us into our camp. It was so moving and there is no way I can do it justice in words…David Serota has it all on film, so it will no doubt eventually speak for itself.

International Medical Corps’ hospital facility is set up next to the compound where we are staying and after dropping our bags we walk fifty meters into the fenced area for a tour. The care being provided, considering the extremely remote location, is again incredible. The stories I hear are again, harrowing. I met a mother who was running away from a group of militia three days earlier with her baby strapped to her back. They both got shot, but survived and thankfully made it into the facility in time. Her boy is so little and the huge bandages on his arms break my heart. Everything about this place breaks my heart. These people all have stories which they share with me and there is just simply too much to try to grasp. Everyone has lost something, everyone has lost someone. I meet malnourished babies, mothers, fathers, widows and widowers, malaria sufferers, their eyes glazed, victims of rape and pillaging. They are all here in massive numbers, and their stories are agonizing. I meet a group of about a hundred who have selected an old man to read out on behalf of them all, their list of grievances. They have no homes and no possessions and they need others to recognize they are in crisis. I sat down with the Mai Mai, an armed community defense group that has been placed here by the government, but not paid for months. The general told me that he wants to go back to his old post but leaving this area would look like he was plotting to join another force and would essentially place a target on his head. He was surrounded by his men in green uniforms, holding their ammunition and AK 47s. It is intimidating for me to interview them and certainly against the norm for them to answer difficult questions posed by a woman. Even though their definition implies that they are allies of the government, I know that there is really no “good” armed group in this country. I later asked a victim of rape if she felt protected by the Mai Mai or any of the military here. She simply said “I don’t trust any man wearing a uniform”. This woman had been raped on three separate occasions, each time requiring fistula repair. The last time she was held captive for three months and was consistently raped by eleven men. The reason she had had so many of these encounters was because she was disabled and therefore when the men came into the village and the women fled, she was always left behind. She simply could not run as fast as the others. I sat with a fourteen year old girl who was raped nine days ago… and another and another. It is impossible to fathom the sheer number of women who have been violated here, and their stories are way beyond anything I can even begin to comprehend.

I was able to deliver one wonderful treat in Chambucha. Lysa Heslov and her terrific foundation, Children Mending Hearts, provided hundreds of t-shirts for the children who are in desperate need of clothes and it was uplifting and rewarding to later see them running around smiling in their new clothes.

We spent the night in bunk beds within the camps and eat a supper of cassava leaves with some river fish and rice. There is no electricity so everything is cooked on clay pots over coal and we wash before dinner with a bucket of cold water. I haven’t felt so present in a long time. There is something to be said for eliminating choice and the calm that comes with it. It dawns on me that I get so overwhelmed at home and life is often spent planning or organizing or making decisions in general. Here there is really not much choice at all and as a result I find myself stopping and actually having the time to process the experiences we have had. The drive back on Thursday took about seven hours. We slept in Bukavu and then drove eight and a half hours to Rwanda.

I broke down twice on this trip. The first time after being in the displacement camp outside Goma, seeing the woman with the colostomy bag. I had to step into an empty tent and sob. I had consciously planned on keeping it together, but the visual and the look in her eyes broke me. After that, some form of defense mechanism kicks in. Of course you feel enormous empathy but there is no room for personal emotion in these places. Still, as we crossed the border into Rwanda, it all hit me, and I cried. It was a pretty silent journey to Kigali because we all leave a piece of our hearts in DRC. There is a lot to process, but I have never gone on such an incredible journey before and am inspired to come home and start the real work. Please go to imcworldwide.org and if you have anything to spare, donate. Trust me the money you spend will be very well used and these people need and deserve all the help they can get.

**Listen to an interview with Sienna Miller from Air America radio**

A few weeks ago I was driving down Pacific Coast highway singing along with Bob Dylan. “Pistol shots ring out in a bar room night…” As an artist he was compelled to write a song about the wrongful murder conviction of boxing legend, Rubin Carter. Their fight was not lost on me or on the day.

April 4th.

41 years ago that day, Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down in Memphis, Tennessee. All three of these men did more than follow their passion. They spent a lot of time with something, got really good at it, and then used it as a battle cry for issues much larger than themselves.

I had just agreed to take my second trip to DR Congo, the first being 3 months previous for the non-profit, Children Mending Hearts. They facilitate art exchanges with at risk children in the United States and their counterparts in war torn regions around the world. Previous to that I had spent time on the Thai/Burma border shooting a documentary about sex trafficking and prostitution.

My life was becoming much more adventurous than I had anticipated. See, last December I married my longtime girlfriend, Kathy. We have no children other than our beloved dogs, Djembe and Georgia, who might as well be our kids. Still, a family was forming and I began to need to justify my risks. Not to Kathy, to myself.

Can storytelling move mountains? Is a film bigger than the filmmaker?

As my plane took off last night I felt… heavy. I already missed my wife and the pups but as we made our descent into London, something shifted.

The thousands of rooftops began to take the shape of an answer. Few images truly make you realize how many people there are in the world as when you are flying over a city.

I thought about Rubin Carter, and Bob Dylan, and Bobby Kennedy and Barack Obama and I realized…

The singular voice can be heard. It can make a difference, even in one lifetime. It can move mountains. It can create social and political change that re-directs our resources and influences our policies.

We are the new philosophers. The Change makers. You are.

Do something.

David Serota is an award-winning filmmaker and the owner of Dokument Films (DF). Read full bio.