Undergraduate
Saint Michael's presents community-wide Congo Week: Breaking the Silence
Local Congalese natives highlight the program
Contact Information:
Buff Lindau, Public Relations
802.654.2536
blindau@smcvt.edu
Saint Michael's College, with support from Champlain College and area social activists, is staging Congo Week: Breaking the Silence, Sunday, Oct. 18, through Friday, Oct. 23, at various venues in the area.
Local Congalese natives highlight the program, including Saint Michael's visiting scholar, Pierre Mujomba, who, along with University of Vermont Corse Professor of English, Dr. Lokangaka Losambe, will speak Monday, Oct. 19, in St. Edmund's Hall Farrell Room (3rd floor) on The Roots of the Current Conflict in the Congo.
"Roughly 6 million people have died in the Congo since 1996-half of them children under the age of five-and hundreds of thousands of women have been raped," said Dr. Patricia Siplon, Saint Michael's Professor of Political Science, who is coordinating Congo Week. "Yet the world is silent, and the scramble for mineral wealth driving the conflict has been almost completely ignored," she said. "Congo Week is an effort to end that silence and train our focus to an enormous and on-going violation of human rights."
The program includes an interfaith service and candlelight vigil, personal accounts by Congolese citizens of their experiences in their violence-torn country, the film Lumumba, Cell Out-a no-electronics day, and a rally with Vermont's Congressional delegation.
The full schedule of the week, Sunday, Oct. 18 through Friday, Oct. 23, is as follows:
Sunday, Oct. 18, Interfaith service with candlelight vigil and remembrance, 5 p.m. at South Burlington Community Bible Church, 2025 Williston Rd.
Monday, Oct. 19, The Roots of the Current Conflict in the Congo: A Panel Discussion with Dr. Lokangaka Losambe, Corse Professor of English at the University of Vermont, and Pierre Mujomba, Saint Michael's College visiting scholar, at 4 p.m. in St. Edmund's Hall Farrell Room (3rd floor).
Tuesday, Oct. 20, The Role of Outside Intervention: Screening of Lumumba at 6 p.m. in the Hoehl Welcome Center. The film charts the rise to power and assassination of the first elected leader of the independent Congo, Patrice Lumumba.
Wednesday, Oct. 21, Cell Out: all day, multiple locations. The communities of Saint Michael's College and Champlain College will be asked to spend a day without electronic technology to demonstrate the link between coltan and the devastation of the Congo. The Congo, Cell Phones & the Industry that Connects Them, a talk at 7 p.m. in the Hauke Conference Room, Champlain College, by Cleophace Mukunda, a native of the Congo, to explain how the demand for coltan, a mineral used in electronics, is driving a conflict in the Congo causing death and devastation of millions of Congolese citizens.
Thursday, Oct. 22, The Crisis of Sexual Violence and Rape as a Weapon of War, 7 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church at 152 Pearl St., Burlington. Members of the local Congolese community will share their experiences and show slides of atrocities committed against innocent villagers in Eastern Congo.
Friday, Oct. 23, Advocacy for urgent Action on the Congo, at 12:00 noon at the offices of Senators Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders, and Congressman Peter Welch. Led by members of the local Congolese community, a delegation of citizens and students will march from Leahy's office on Main Street to Sanders' office on Church Street to Welch's office on lower Main Street to deliver a platform of demands for urgent U.S. action in the Congo.
Program coordinators include Professor Siplon, Laurie Gagne, Director of the Saint Michael's Edmundite Center for Peace and Justice, Erin Collins, Assistant Director of Saint Michael's MOVE, Mobilization of Volunteer Efforts, and Ashley George of Champlain College. The week of events is sponsored by Saint Michael's College, the Vermont Global Health Coalition, Congo Umoja and Champlain College.
At Saint Michael's College, Learn What Matters. Saint Michael's is a distinctive Catholic liberal arts college that provides education with a social conscience, producing graduates with the intellectual tools to lead a successful, purposeful life that will contribute to peace and justice in our world. Founded in 1904 by the Society of St. Edmund and headed by President John J. Neuhauser, Saint Michael's is identified by the Princeton Review as one of the nation's Best 371 Colleges. It is one of 270 colleges and universities nationwide, and one of only 20 Catholic colleges, with a Phi Beta Kappa chapter. Saint Michael's has 1,900 undergraduate students, some 500 graduate students and 100 international students. Saint Michael's students and professors have received Rhodes, Woodrow Wilson, Pickering, Guggenheim, Fulbright, and other grants. The college is one of the nation's Best Liberal Arts Colleges as listed in the 2009 U.S. News & World Report rankings. Saint Michael's is located just outside Burlington, Vermont, one of America's top college towns.
Buff Lindau, Public Relations
802.654.2536
blindau@smcvt.edu
Saint Michael's College, with support from Champlain College and area social activists, is staging Congo Week: Breaking the Silence, Sunday, Oct. 18, through Friday, Oct. 23, at various venues in the area. Local Congalese natives highlight the program, including Saint Michael's visiting scholar, Pierre Mujomba, who, along with University of Vermont Corse Professor of English, Dr. Lokangaka Losambe, will speak Monday, Oct. 19, in St. Edmund's Hall Farrell Room (3rd floor) on The Roots of the Current Conflict in the Congo.
"Roughly 6 million people have died in the Congo since 1996-half of them children under the age of five-and hundreds of thousands of women have been raped," said Dr. Patricia Siplon, Saint Michael's Professor of Political Science, who is coordinating Congo Week. "Yet the world is silent, and the scramble for mineral wealth driving the conflict has been almost completely ignored," she said. "Congo Week is an effort to end that silence and train our focus to an enormous and on-going violation of human rights."
The program includes an interfaith service and candlelight vigil, personal accounts by Congolese citizens of their experiences in their violence-torn country, the film Lumumba, Cell Out-a no-electronics day, and a rally with Vermont's Congressional delegation.
The full schedule of the week, Sunday, Oct. 18 through Friday, Oct. 23, is as follows:
Sunday, Oct. 18, Interfaith service with candlelight vigil and remembrance, 5 p.m. at South Burlington Community Bible Church, 2025 Williston Rd.
Monday, Oct. 19, The Roots of the Current Conflict in the Congo: A Panel Discussion with Dr. Lokangaka Losambe, Corse Professor of English at the University of Vermont, and Pierre Mujomba, Saint Michael's College visiting scholar, at 4 p.m. in St. Edmund's Hall Farrell Room (3rd floor).
Tuesday, Oct. 20, The Role of Outside Intervention: Screening of Lumumba at 6 p.m. in the Hoehl Welcome Center. The film charts the rise to power and assassination of the first elected leader of the independent Congo, Patrice Lumumba.
Wednesday, Oct. 21, Cell Out: all day, multiple locations. The communities of Saint Michael's College and Champlain College will be asked to spend a day without electronic technology to demonstrate the link between coltan and the devastation of the Congo. The Congo, Cell Phones & the Industry that Connects Them, a talk at 7 p.m. in the Hauke Conference Room, Champlain College, by Cleophace Mukunda, a native of the Congo, to explain how the demand for coltan, a mineral used in electronics, is driving a conflict in the Congo causing death and devastation of millions of Congolese citizens.
Thursday, Oct. 22, The Crisis of Sexual Violence and Rape as a Weapon of War, 7 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church at 152 Pearl St., Burlington. Members of the local Congolese community will share their experiences and show slides of atrocities committed against innocent villagers in Eastern Congo.
Friday, Oct. 23, Advocacy for urgent Action on the Congo, at 12:00 noon at the offices of Senators Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders, and Congressman Peter Welch. Led by members of the local Congolese community, a delegation of citizens and students will march from Leahy's office on Main Street to Sanders' office on Church Street to Welch's office on lower Main Street to deliver a platform of demands for urgent U.S. action in the Congo.
Program coordinators include Professor Siplon, Laurie Gagne, Director of the Saint Michael's Edmundite Center for Peace and Justice, Erin Collins, Assistant Director of Saint Michael's MOVE, Mobilization of Volunteer Efforts, and Ashley George of Champlain College. The week of events is sponsored by Saint Michael's College, the Vermont Global Health Coalition, Congo Umoja and Champlain College.
At Saint Michael's College, Learn What Matters. Saint Michael's is a distinctive Catholic liberal arts college that provides education with a social conscience, producing graduates with the intellectual tools to lead a successful, purposeful life that will contribute to peace and justice in our world. Founded in 1904 by the Society of St. Edmund and headed by President John J. Neuhauser, Saint Michael's is identified by the Princeton Review as one of the nation's Best 371 Colleges. It is one of 270 colleges and universities nationwide, and one of only 20 Catholic colleges, with a Phi Beta Kappa chapter. Saint Michael's has 1,900 undergraduate students, some 500 graduate students and 100 international students. Saint Michael's students and professors have received Rhodes, Woodrow Wilson, Pickering, Guggenheim, Fulbright, and other grants. The college is one of the nation's Best Liberal Arts Colleges as listed in the 2009 U.S. News & World Report rankings. Saint Michael's is located just outside Burlington, Vermont, one of America's top college towns.
