one of the first people to comment on my blog

when i first started it, was a woman affiliated with:

one by one

INSPIRE PEOPLE EMPOWER SOLOUTIONS END FISTULA

(unfortunately i have forgotten her name and i apologize for that). i posted a link to one by one on my sidebar then and there and it has remained ever since.

about one by one

Our Mission-One By One contributes to the elimination of obstetric fistula worldwide by engaging the public and providing financial support to those who treat and prevent fistula in the developing world.
Our Vision-Inspire people. Empower solutions. End fistula.
Our Philosophy-Many of us respond to the suffering of others around the world with sadness, guilt and shame. Stories of the sick and the dying leave us disempowered and wondering how any one person can make any significant difference.
At One By One, we believe that small is not insignificant. We believe that it is possible to address global public health issues like obstetric fistula from the “bottom up” to meet the “top-down” work of multilateral agencies. We harness the “smaller” and otherwise disparate energies of those who want to help but don’t know how. We empower regular people to conceive of and implement concrete solutions to manageable pieces of the “fistula problem”.
In addition to raising public awareness of fistula and encouraging widespread participation, One By One believes that our resources are best used to address the unmet needs of fistula treatment and prevention programs in the developing world. To this end, we make direct grants to support fistula treatment and prevention in Africa and beyond.

women are treated as animals (not just in congo but everywhere-of course it's not by everyone). after they are raped they are tossed aside even by family members. it's as if THEY (the woman) were the evil one. can you imagine on top of all of this, not being able to control your bladder and/or bowels? WE ARE NOT ANOTHER SPECIES. we are human beings. we not only want but we deserve to be treated as nothing less

this was in a recent newsweek online/msnbc:

More Vicious Than Rape

The atrocity reports from eastern Congo were so hellish that Western medical experts refused to believe them—at first.

Web Exclusive
By Rod Nordland
Newsweek
Updated: 6:01 p.m. ET Nov 13, 2006
Nov. 13, 2006 - Warning: do not read this story if you are easily disturbed by graphic information, or are under age, or are easily upset by accounts of gruesome sexual violence.
This is about fistulas—and rape, which in Congo has become the continuation of war by other means. Fistulas are a kind of damage that is seldom seen in the developed world. Many obstetricians have encountered the condition only in their medical texts, as a rare complication associated with difficult or abnormal childbirths: a rupture of the walls that separate the vagina and bladder or rectum. Where health care is poor, particularly where trained doctors or midwives are not available, fistulas are more of a risk. They are a major health concern in many parts of Africa. In eastern Congo, however, the problem is practically an epidemic. When a truce was declared in the war there in 2003, so many cases began showing up that Western medical experts at first called it impossible—especially when local doctors declared that most of the fistulas they were seeing were the consequence of rapes. "No one wanted to believe it at first," says Lyn Lusi, manager of the HEAL Africa hospital (formerly called the Docs Hospital) in the eastern Congo city of Goma. "When our doctors first published their results, in 2003, this was unheard of."..........

Tech Tags: fistula women's+health rape congo one+by+one