We started this blog to document our desire to be more engaged in the world, and quickly found ourselves with our first project, ABFEK / Action Kivu in Congo.  We wanted to share the ups and downs of beginning a nonprofit, and learned a lot along the way.  While we’re still fiscally sponsored by home&community (for which we can never sing Sabrina’s praises enough) we are THIS close to becoming our own 501(c)3. We’re submitting the application soon — send out good thoughts that Cate’s long hours will pay off and it will be approved.

We reserve the right to randomly post any non-AK yet still world-saving thoughts here on Cate & Rebecca, but for now, we hope you’ll follow us and Action Kivu’s work on Facebook, Twitter and Action Kivu’s website, where we’ll share stories straight from the Congo.  (Check out the latest blog post here.)

Your inspiring quote for the day:

The most important act of peacemaking?  Your next one.  Few of us will ever be called on to do great things, but all of us can do small things in a great way.

~Colman McCarthy (journalist and peace educator, from an interview in Hope)

Flipping through the “Upstanders for Congo” section, we discovered the name WE like to drop. Amani’s story is featured in the book, under the pseudonym of Joseph. We’re still unsure why, as his real name and story have been on the Action Kivu website for a couple of years, but we were excited to read his story alongside the other activists in Congo. It’s titled “Joseph: A Man Who Stands Up For Women.”

If you haven’t met Amani via the Action Kivu video yet, check it out. I love the part where he talks about the sewing workshop and says, “We want to give power to women. … This will make the local media and other community members feel that women CAN! Because some people think women cannot. But in my belief, women can. Women are our mothers and they are the mothers of this society.” (4:55)

The Hollywood-ness of it all continued when my friend invited me to a night with John Dau, one of the Lost Boys of Sudan, who started a foundation to serve Sudan. Hosted by the Artists for Human Rights organization, we gathered at Anne Archer’s house for wine and tiny food. Though Archer is most famous for “Fatal Attraction” (and there was many a bad joke between my friend and I about who would bring the rabbit), she’s now known for hosting salon gatherings of artists to get involved and be the change they want to see in the world. It was a lovely, if somewhat bizarre night – sipping the best wine in a lovely Los Angeles home, mingling with artists and the pretty people, hearing the horrific stories of a child on the run from his home, shot at by militias, eating mud to survive, watching his friends die.

John Dau’s story is both horrific and inspiring, as he stands before you and tells you that whatever you’re facing in your life, you can learn from his experience to never give up. And MOVE ON. Don’t let the past hold you down. Forgive those who need forgiveness in order to live your life to its fullest.

It reminded me, again, of Amani, and the women and children he works so hard to empower. He doesn’t let the violence of his past OR present stop him from working for a peaceful present. It can be overwhelming to hear the statistics, all around the world, of war and genocide and rape. But you CAN be the change, in your own life, and by helping Amani in his life’s work to educate and empower women and children. As Amani signed off on a recent email: This is time for peace.

Posted by Rebecca

I bus through Los Angeles streets filled with mansions and cross an invisible barrier into poverty where kids aren’t getting enough to eat or a good education. I’m baffled at our world. “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed” ~ Mahatma Gandhi.

“A number of … studies have shown that lower-income Americans give proportionally more of their incomes to charity than do upper-income Americans,” Judith Warner writes in the New York Times magazine. “In 2001, Independent Sector, a nonprofit organization focused on charitable giving, found that households earning less that $25,000 a year gave away an average of 4.2 percent of their incomes; those with earnings of more than $75,000 gave away 2.7 percent.”

According to Paul K. Piff, a Ph.D. candidate in social psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, the paradox makes sense. In Warner’s report on “why giving the rich a break doesn’t necessarily do anything for the poor,” she writes that in Piff’s “study of the psychological cultures of wealth and poverty, he performed an experiment that tested ‘lower class’ and ‘upper class’ subjects (with earnings ranging from around $15,000 to more than $150,000 a year) to see what kind of psychological factors motivated the well-known differences in their giving behavior.”

“[Piff's] study … found that lower-income people were more generous, charitable, trusting and helpful to others than were those with more wealth. They were more attuned to the needs of others and more committed generally to the values of egalitarianism.

“‘Upper class’ people, on the other hand, clung to values that ‘prioritized their own need.’ And, he told me this week, ‘wealth seems to buffer people from attending to the needs of others.’ Empathy and compassion appeared to be the key ingredients in the greater generosity of those with lower incomes. And these two traits proved to be in increasingly short supply as people moved up the income spectrum.”

This “compassion deficit” seems to come down to a lack of imagination. As economist Frank Levy wrote, “The welfare state rests on enlightened self-interest in which people can look at beneficiaries and reasonably say, ‘There but for the grace of God….’ As income differences widen, this statement rings less true.”

The Center on Philanthropy found that “only a small percentage of charitable giving by the wealthy was actually going to the needs of the poor; instead it was mostly directed to other causes — cultural institutions, for example, or their alma maters.”

“It’s tempting to believe that there’s something intrinsic to the rich or the poor that explains their greater or lesser generosity and empathetic connection to others … but Piff’s research points in a different direction. Piff found that if higher-income people were instructed to imagine themselves as lower class, they became more charitable. … And fascinatingly, the inverse was true as well: when lower-income people were led to think of themselves as upper class, they actually became less altruistic.”

How utterly depressing, that as we envision ourselves successful and well-off, we seem to lose the imagination to put ourselves in others’ shoes. But “these patterns can be changed,” Piff says. “We should look at what has pushed rich and poor (or, more accurately, the rich and everyone else) to such opposite extremes of existence,” writes Warner. “A generation of political decisions — regarding big business and labor, the deregulation of the financial industry, and yes, tax cuts for the wealthy — have brought our society to this sharply divided, socially and economically polarized place we now find ourselves.”

“In a more equitable society, the very well off might indeed have less cash to give. But if a rising tide lifts all boats, that may not matter so much,” Warner surmises.

“It is above all by the imagination that we achieve perception and compassion and hope.” ~ Ursula K. LeGuin

“Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.” ~ Henry Louis Mencken

Posted by Rebecca

(Photo: Building a Contrast, chaffyboy, flickr.com)

As you, our faithful blog followers know, Cate and I are working alongside Amani of Action Kivu, a nonprofit in the Congo that works to empower and educate women and children affected by the ongoing conflict there.  The war has stolen over 5.4 million lives, and rape is widely used as a weapon of war, with estimates putting the number of rapes in the hundreds of thousands.

Cate’s twin sister is a sewing / quilting queen, and has launched a fundraiser for Action Kivu’s sewing workshop, to fund a safe place of community for the women to meet and learn a lifelong skill and to purchase sewing machines and fabric.  If you want to partner with and help your sewing sisters in the Congo, visit Handmade by Alissa to see a video about Action Kivu’s work, the women in the workshop, and to read the details of how you can donate and also enter to win a fabulous giveaway.  I have no talent for sewing besides the odd button that keeps popping off, but apparently, this flea market fancy fabric is hard to find, and makes sewing that much more fun.  And fancy.

Your donations are tax deductible, go towards helping empower women to heal and become self-sustaining members of society, and every dollar makes a difference.  And if you want to partner with the women on a monthly basis, you can do that as well.

Visit Alissa’s blog to read the details of how to donate for this specific fundraiser and be entered in the fabric giveaway.  And tell your friends / bloggers!  So thankful for your help.

And let me give a special word of thanks to Kimberly  Huie for her wonderful voice, Clint Bennett who did some of our music, Matt Kielkopf for his mad sound skills (both recording and cleaning up our messy sound!) and Dave Henri  for creating our graphics.  We’re really happy with the final product and we hope you like it too.  Spread the word by sharing it with your friends!

Posted by Cate

“Congo:Africa – The fate of humanity is on display in the Congo. How we respond to the devastating situation in the heart of Africa says much about our development as a ‘civilized’ world. Let the world know that you value human life unconditionally.” (Friends of the Congo)

Amani was so grateful to receive your gifts of partnership for his work empowering and educating the women and children of Kivu. He’s on his way back home to the Congo, and into his luggage he packed a “new to him” laptop computer and three digital cameras. He also takes with him the guarantee that funds are on the way to support the children starting a new school year and the women working toward healing and self-sustainability in the sewing workshop. He’ll be able to use the computer and cameras to send more regular updates now, keeping us a part of the stories that unfold in the Congo.

Through your partnership with Amani, you’re letting the world know that you value human life, the particular lives of these women and children surrounded by a war that has erased the lives almost 6 million of their fellow citizens.

Amani’s excitement about the future of the sewing workshop and the kids returning to school is palpable.  He sees the pride of orphaned children, knowing that someone is looking out for them and cares about them to send them to school.  He tells us about the difference he can see in women who were raped and tortured in the conflict, now finding community as they work together, sewing beautiful fabrics to celebrate weddings, putting on plays to highlight the work of women.

To do this work, Amani needs support. He specifically needs funds to send the kids to school and buy the material to make their uniforms.  $40 will send one child to school for the year, and currently, Amani sends 317 vulnerable children to 5 different schools, just a “drop in an ocean of need,” he says.  He also needs more sewing machines, and the funds to pay the trainers so that the women have a place to learn their craft and a safe place of community.

Click  here to partner with Amani and Action Kivu once or on a monthly basis, or if you prefer to send a check, please email us at cateandrebecca@gmail.com for the info and address.

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” ~Mary Oliver

Posted by Rebecca

How many of us really got Ms. Griffin’s message? Thank god Moby did. While cutting together the Baltimore interview footage of Amani for a rockin’ Action Kivu video, Cate discovered this site.

Moby writes:

this portion of moby.com, ‘film music’, is for independent and non-profit filmmakers, film students, and anyone in need of free music for their independent, non-profit film, video, or short.
to use the site you log in(or on?) and are then given a password.
you can then listen to the available music and download whatever you want to use in your film or video or short.
the music is free as long as it’s being used in a non-commercial or non-profit film, video, or short.
if you want to use it in a commercial film or short then you can apply for an easy license, with any money that’s generated being given to the humane society.
i hope that you find what you’re looking for,
moby

How great is that? It makes me want to ask Moby to my birthday party, and to share all my crayons.

Moby, courtesy dentromusica.com

Posted by Rebecca

“I lost my parents, and somebody helped me to go to school.  What pushes me? In my career (as a translator and fixer), I’m on the ground. Exposed to all the miseries and and atrocities.  I have to do something, that I can help others.  Especially women and children. Eastern Congo has become the worst place for women because of useless conflicts.”

The sculpture's artist Ono was inspired to make something to "show how love can overtake, consume, and give energy to people to make them change the world."

Meet Amani, the man behind Action Kivu, who, from his own resources and work as a translator, started the sewing workshop and collective and recently added an education program for orphaned and vulnerable children.  ”My wife, she is not so happy when I get the paycheck at the end of the month,” Amani tells us, laughing.  ”Because,” he says, “it all goes to the programs, immediately.”  Besides paying for the schooling of all 6 (!) of his own children, Amani pays for over 100 children to attend school, $4 per month per child for a 10 month school year (including the cost of pencils and a uniform).

Amini, Amani’s wife, is a seamstress and his partner in the women’s workshop, as well as the reason he chose sewing as a way to empower and educate women who are victims of the conflict.  ”I want to offer women a place of comfort,” he says.  “What happened to them was against their will.  They have the right to dignity, to become a useful part of the community.”

When we learned that Amani would be traveling to Baltimore for a conference at Johns Hopkins University, Cate and I scheduled a quick weekend trip so that we could meet him in person. We knew through our mutual friend and Action Kivu board member Kevin Sites that Amani was a great man with a compassionate heart and insanely strong work ethic. After only minutes sitting with him in a Starbucks near Charles Commons, we had found a new friend as well.

Despite all Amani has seen and endured personally in a country ravaged by a war that has claimed 5.4 million lives (and counting) including both his parents, family members and friends, Amani is a true optimist.  He was immediately open with us, grateful and gracious, intelligent and funny.  We learned so much and were overwhelmed by his vision, compassionate heart and plans for peace for Congo.

Monique and Matt from Falling Whistles drove in from D.C. and joined us for a water taxi ride to Fell’s Point, gelato and talk of conflict resolution for Congo.  Just another day in sticky, sweaty Baltimore.  We talked about the history of the conflict, the advocacy and education that needs to be done internationally and locally in Congo.  We listened as Amani’s gelato melted, ignored while he answered our many questions and shared his views on what will bring peace to his country.  “People need to come together,” he said.  “Even now, if you visit my home, and visit the border with Rwanda, you will see people crossing, coming to Congo for the cheaper schools.  Going to Rwanda for work and to market. We need more of that.  Kids playing football matches together, community education. They are the future, not for conflict, but for cooperation.”

We wish we could introduce you all to Amani in person. There is so much more to share of his vision, his goals and dreams, his needs that we CAN meet and partner with him to help bring peace to Congo. To share his compassionate heart, his humor, his thoughts on Americans: we’re happy and express ourselves easily, but we could — ahem — eat less. It was absolutely fantastic meeting Amani. Cate and I are still processing all that we experienced and learned, and working on a short video to share more with you through that medium.

If you believe as Amani does, that kids are our future for cooperation, not conflict, move that mouse on over to the donate button to your right. $40 will fund one year of education for one child who has been left alone in the world, unsure that any person is looking out for her. There are over 800,000 orphans in Congo, from HIV/AIDS, disease, poverty and war. But, Amani tells us, when you invest in one child, you can see the difference. Teachers tell him that “his” kids are visibly changed. “It’s a success,” he says. “Kids who had nothing now feel loved, and that someone believes in them.”  They are happier, eager, more confident.

$160 buys a sewing machine for the workshop, so that the women can continue toward self-sufficiency.  And, in perfect symbiosis, the kids need uniforms for school starting in September, which the women will sew.  They need the material and the machines to get the job done in time.

Come together. That is the solution.

Amani with his kids at school

(Posted by Rebecca)

We’d met Sean at the Active Workshop launch party, and had been impressed with his quick summary and impassioned call to action in the few minutes he had to address the 20somethings gathered in the sport shop.  Last Sunday, with the occasional distraction of a near-miss gooooal! and much hooping and hollering, we recognized why Falling Whistles has grown so quickly to be a powerful voice in the advocacy work for peace in Congo.

Sean, quite simply, is a visionary leader.  Watch out, you mothers who want your kids to get their MBAs and 401Ks.   Spend 10 minutes talking with Sean, Dave and Monique, and you’re ready to sell your house, bunk with a roomie in a garage, and spend every waking minute living out a call to end an ongoing holocaust, to speak out for peace and freedom for every person on the planet.

‘Cause that’s Sean’s goal.  Freedom for all.  You can read his story of his trip to Congo and how he started Falling Whistles, but I wanted to share a bit of what we got on Sunday.  “Even if Falling Whistles fails tomorrow,” he says, “I’ll wake up the next day to fight for freedom.”  It’s that simple.  It’s what he believes.

Sean and Dave introduced us to the idea of leading with the “why” of your belief and your goals, a concept best summed up by Simon Sinek in a Ted.com talk. (Bold highlighting is mine.)

Sinek asks Why.

Why?  Why is Apple consistently innovative?
Why?  Why did Martin Luther King Jr. lead the civil rights movement?
Why?  Why were the Wright brothers able to figure out control-powered manned flight?

“There’s something else at play here.  … There’s a pattern.  As it turns out, all the great and inspiring leaders of organizations in the world, whether it’s Apple or Martin Luther King or the Wright brothers, they all think, act and communicate in the exact same way, and it’s the complete opposite to everyone else.  … And it’s probably the world’s simplest idea.  I call it the golden circle. (Sinek draws three circles, one within the next.  In the center circle he writes “Why,” in the next ring he writes “How,” and in the outer ring he writes “What.”)

“Every single person or organization on the planet knows what they do.  100%.  Some know how they do it. … But very few organizations or people on the planet know why they do what they do.  And by why I don’t mean to make a profit.  That’s a result. By why, I mean, what’s your purpose? What’s your cause, what’s your belief? Why does your organization exist?  Why do you get out of bed in the morning? And why should anyone care?

“As a result, the way we we think, the way we act, the way we communicate is from the outside in. It’s obvious, we go from the clearest thing (pointing to the “what” circle) to the fuzziest (pointing to the “why” circle).  But the inspired leaders, the inspired organizations, regardless of their size, regardless of their industry, all think, act and communicate from the inside, out.  (He draws an arrow from why to how to what.)

…“Here’s how Apple actually communicates. (Pointing to the “why” inner circle) Everything we do, we believe in challenging the status quo, we believe in thinking differently. (Pointing to the “how”) The way we challenge the status quo is by making our products beautifully designed, simple to use, and user friendly. We just happen to make great computers. Wanna buy one?

“All I did was reverse the order of information. What it proves to us is that people don’t buy what you do, people buy why you do it. … The goal is not to do business with everybody who needs what you have. The goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe.

(On the law of diffusion of innovation) …”These guys, the innovators and the early adopters, they’re comfortable making those gut decisions.  They’re more comfortable making those intuitive decisions that are driven by what they believe about the world, and not just what product is available.  … What you do simply proves what you believe.

…”Dr. King wasn’t the only man in America who was a great orator. He wasn’t the only man who suffered in a pre-civil rights America. In fact, some of his ideas were bad. But he had a gift. He didn’t go around telling people what needed to change in America. He went around and told people what he believed. ‘I believe, I believe, I believe,’ he told people. And people who believed what he believed, took his cause, and they made it their own, and they told people. … We followed, not for him, but for ourselves. And by the way, he gave the ‘I have a dream’ speech, not the ‘I have a plan’ speech.”

Sean is one of those leaders. If you have the chance, invite him to speak to your school, your students, your organization. We won’t follow his footsteps for peace because of him, but we will be inspired to make changes for ourselves. Because of the world that we dream is possible. It is our burden, Sean reminded us, to remind others of this world, to share the stories of Congo, to inspire allegiance for peace. To change the conversations from the vapid and mundane (but seriously, who watching “The Bachelorette” last night was shocked to see Kirk go after the freaking taxidermy dad?) to the real.

“The opposite of love,” says Elie Wiesel, “is not hate…it is indifference.”

“There are leaders and there are those who lead. Leaders hold a position of power or authority. But those who lead inspire us. Whether they’re individuals or organizations, we follow those who lead, not because we have to, but because we want to. We follow those who lead, not for them, but for ourselves. And it’s those who start with ‘why’ who have the ability to inspire those around them.” (Sinek)

(Listen to / view Sinek’s full Ted.com talk here and learn how it’s a biological brain function to operate from the “why.”)

Posted by Rebecca

It’s also an easier and more affordable flight than going to the Congo, and the stage for our first meeting with Amani, the man behind Action Kivu.  Amani is attending a course at Johns Hopkins University, and we get to steal him away to pester him with questions and generally get to know him better in person.

It’s also a perfect time to be able to gift Amani with necessary items to document the wonderful work he does.  Work that sometimes puts Amani and his family at risk for the unconditional support and education he offers to those in need. After his house was firebombed, Amani lost his camera and laptop computer.   We would be honored to give him those items when we arrive in Baltimore, so he is equipped to share the stories of the school children and the women in the sewing workshop.

Here’s another chance for you to partner with Action Kivu’s work in the Congo!  Do you have an old laptop and/or digital camera that you no longer use?  Your donation will be tax deductible, we just need you to itemize its worth for us, and you’ll receive a receipt.  Please pass the word along to anyone you know who might have a computer or camera to give, this is an amazing way to upcycle used electronics, and play a tangible role in partnering with Amani.

We’re so thankful for all your  words of encouragement, advice and emotional and financial support.

Also, if there’s a must-see/eat spot in the city, let us know! We’d love to show Amani the best of Baltimore.   Email us at cateandrebecca@gmail.com.

Posted by Rebecca