This week, I want to highlight an amazing organization called The Enough Project for the great work they are doing. They are relatively well known, especially in the field of human rights, so you might have heard of them. Enough aims to end genocide and crimes against humanity. They work not only to stop atrocities that are currently occurring, but also aim to prevent future genocide through analysis, advocacy, and activism.
Enough conducts intensive field research in countries plagued by genocide and crimes against humanity, develops practical policies to address these crises, and shares sensible tools to help empower citizens and groups working for change. Our initial work has focused on grave challenges in a number of African countries: Sudan, eastern Congo, northern Uganda, Somalia, Chad and Zimbabwe.
One of their interesting recent campaigns is Come Clean 4 Congo, a video contest aiming to raise awareness about the link between our cell phones and the violence in Congo. In Eastern Congo, sexual violence is often intensified by wars over “conflict minerals,” - ores that produce tin, tungsten, and tantalum - metals that end up being used to build our electronic devices. Enough also has a Raise Hope for Congo campaign which provides lots of excellent information about the conflict and provides helpful tools for budding activists to take action. There’s so little awareness about what’s actually happening in Congo, so hopefully these campaigns will help put Congo on the radar.
One reason I chose Enough is because a couple of weeks ago, I talked about a common stereotype of Africa: the entire continent is often viewed as one huge country, and people often don’t have a good understanding of the situations occurring in different countries (myself included!). So the best thing you can do is educate yourself, and you can do so by checking out their Conflict Areas page which clearly describes the major conflicts taking place today in Africa. And after you’ve learned about the issues, Take Action and do something about it - whether it’s writing a letter to your representative, signing a petition, or educating your friends about the issues; however little you contribute, it’s important you do.
The Enough Project is doing excellent work raising awareness about important issues and conflicts that are often ignored by the mainstream media. I’d highly encourage you to at least explore their website and learn something new today.
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