Kilimanjaro #1MTClimb4Peace UPDATE

Greetings friends! I wanted to give you a detailed update on the end results of our fundraising climb up Kilimanjaro. Thank you all for following this journey, for supporting our team and me personally! I can’t thank you enough.

We climbed 6 months ago… I still feel like I am reeling from it all. Still processing it all. But I received a wonderful email this week with updated reports on the funds we raised, and the programs those funds are supporting. Most importantly, real women are receiving support, healing and hope through these programs. In a world full of bad news (all day every day it seems), this is GOOD news.

(Note: If you want to read more about our climb, I am going to be filling out the #1MTClimb4Peace page with reports, blogs, articles, etc. Just click the #1MTClimb4Peace tab in the top menu for more!)

Here is a little story to wet your appetite…. from a Congolese woman named Deborah, a survivor of sexual violence:

My name is Deborah Ngorore, I am 26 years old and I have one child born out of rape. I am from Ntamugenga village in Rutshuru territory and I grow cassava and maize to support myself and my child. In February 2015, when I was in the farming place in the process of cultivating, two armed men met me and told me that if I try to shout they will kill me. They both abused me.

When I got home, I told everything to my husband thinking he would help me, but instead he kicked me out of the house. A few months later, I realized I was pregnant. It really ached to keep a fetus without knowing who the father was.

During the delivery process I had complications of childbirth. They ended up transferring me to a qualified hospital but it was too late. I unfortunately developed a VVF. During that time, I stayed there as I didn’t have any means to go for medical treatment.

I would later learn through volunteers who were sensitizing the local community that I was in that there was an NGO helping people like me. I did not hesitate to come and see them. May God bless you as you think of the most vulnerable women, as from now on I have recovered my smile.