Victim
147 creative works found
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'Congo Spirit' HEAL Africa Hospital, Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo
by Melinda KerrUS$5.13–US$136.80
Love him. And available as a Christmas card! It is full size just doesn’t look it here. / HEAL Africa calendar available now!!! CLICK HERE. / And there’s a trucker cap. / Hey, doin’ good needn’t mean you can’t be cool at the same time. CLICK HERE FOR THE HAT!
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The Japanese writing is suppose to mean “Big Fat Robot”. However, my translation skills are extremely rusty, so for all those Nipponphiles out there, please tell me if my hanes and ten tens are where they should be. Actually, I don’t mind if it’s horribly wrong, afterall there is a huge market in Japan for meaningless English phrases (go to http://www.engrish.com/ for many hilarious examples). So it should work the other way with equally amusing results. In fact, I remember seeing a GI type wandering around Roppongi with a tshirt written in Japanese kanji, it said “baka gaijin” (idiot foreigner). Not sure if it was an ironic statement on his behalf, or he just thought the letters looked pretty.
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I wanted a image, that I think of alot about. This Poem was written by Vanesse Cathleen who is here on redbubble, i thought it suited this image. The Party Is Over You have been traveling down a one way street. / That will only take you to your personal defeat. It all starts out having fun with your friends / but it doesn’t take long until the parting ends. Your life gets hard, your funds get low, / depression begins to creep in slow. You have warn yourself out, your body is tired. / Your brain is warped yet, you keep getting wired. Your party has lasted a little too long. / No one will listen to your sad twisted song. Now you are traveling a little to fast / and it’s about time to make this all part / of your past. You are near the end / What will you do? Drive on… Drive off… / It’s Up To You!!! By: Vanesse Cathleen All The Materials Contained May Not Be Reproduced, Copied, Edited, Published, Transmitted Or Uploaded In Any Way Without My Permission. My Images Do Not Belong To The Public Domain. / © Shane Walker: using this image for any purpose and in any way, without prior permission, may lead to legal action.
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'Mother and child' Northern Rwanda. By Rebecca Zachariah & Melinda Kerr
by Melinda KerrUS$4.84–US$129.20
This is a compilation I have done with Rebecca Zachariah after our trip to Rwanda. In a nation of shattered souls post genocide, hope remains in the form of new life. These people have witnessed death on massive scale. You can see how precious they consider life from this shot. ALL PROCEEDS TO HEAL AFRICA HEAL Africa calendar available now!!! CLICK HERE. / / – Dog photography – Africa photography / - Beach photography - Black & white photography – Dog photography – Africa photography / - Beach photography - Monotone photography
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This woman is a victim of a seemingly never ending war in southern congo. She has suffered sexual violence (rape) so severe it has rendered her incontinent. She now exists purely as a result of a courageous charity called Heal Africa, and indeed her own inner strength and faith. I asked her if I could take her portrait and she stood up (which must have been painful), straightened her back and stared straight down the lens. No stopping to straighten her scarf, no preening, no fear. Just an honesty so raw, so uninhibited and so rare, I caught my breath and thought I’d never breath again. I was totally overpowered by her intensity. After I took the shot and showed it to her she smiled and thanked me. It still gives me a shiver to look at it now. HEAL Africa calendar available now!!! CLICK HERE. /
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Let me tell you about Samuel. I met Samuel at Mamman Jeanne’s orphanage in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa. Mamman Jeanne’s orphange is sponsored by CNEC Partners International and supported by Heal Africa. Samuel danced for us on arrival. He was awesome. I then had the privilege of interviewing him. In short, here’s his story: When Samuel was 2 and still being breast fed, his mother was set upon randomly by the militia. They do that, for fun. She was attacked with machetes and kiiled where she stood. Samuel was cut by the blow. You can see the scar on the left hand side of his face. He also has some scars on his scalp. Oh and he lost his left hand. Thinking they were all dead and their days work done, the militia left. Samuel was discovered, barely but still alive. He was taken from his mother’s corpse and somehow delivered to Mamman Jeanne. A remarkable woman who nursed him herself (as she was already breast feeding her own child). Samuel is now 16 and still at Mamman Jeanne’s orphanage. Which resides in a war torn country not ‘important’ enough to save. People like Samuel are everywhere in Congo. Everywhere. People like Mamman Jeanne? Not quite so many. Samuel likes playing soccer and dancing. Prior to us arriving a chid had been stolen from the orphanage by the militia to be a child soldier. How long do you reckon Samuel has? When people ask you to donate to these causes, they’re asking you because it’s the only way they will survive. It’s as simple and as gruesome as that. Not unlike the crime in the first place.
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What the hell is going on (and other uplifting stories)...
by Melinda KerrOk, ok first of all, everyone breath. Cool. Now let’s check. Melbourne experiencing four seasons in one day? Check. Shane War…
Ok, ok first of all, everyone breath. Cool. Now let’s check. Melbourne experiencing four seasons in one day? Check. Shane Warne caught out again? Check. Running my own business continuing to be challenging? Check. Darren Stones steering the good ship RB around icebergs with a confident if not somewhat alcohol induced flourish? Check. Some people on some distant journal thread arguing about freedom of speech as if RB is the most vital instrument for world peace on earth. Whilst slandering, vilifying and taunting each other with racial, overworked cliches from behind psuedo names? Check. So nothing new or unusual about today then? Un check. What the… Check this… Today in seperate orders people have bought… 1 canvas print of shoe woman plus 20 cards of shoe woman 150 cards of mother & child 25 cards of Possibility II 25 cards of the congo skipping kids & a further 26 of these 20 cards of this beauty 5 cards of these guys 5 cards of these little ones 2 cards of this chap 2 cards of this dude 2 cards of this princess 5 cards of this piece of possibility and 2 cards of this beautiful, precious boy I don’t know anything much about freedom of speech, flags, philosophy or anything like the stuff that’s been going on here this week. But I’ll tell you all ONE VERY IMPORTANT THING. These purchases will save lives. These people live on less than a dollar a day. They live in slums, gutters and sheds made of flattened alluminium cans. The love, they laugh, they dream – they dodge bullets, they run as fast as they can from rapists usually unsuccessfully, they starve and they cry. Every cent of revenue goes to them and the brave souls who live in a war zone to help them. They couldn’t give a rats about flags, and virtual slanging matches. They live on the real edge. I didn’t cry once in Africa. Right now I am sitting here drowning in tears. Maybe change is possible? Even the tiniest bit?? Thanks RB – thanks whoever. EDIT: SEEMS LIKE A GOOD TIME TO DEBUT THIS FELLA. Oh and thinking of turning some of these into Chrissy cards if anyone’s interested.
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I first read of Oink in fellow Red Bubbler , Jennifer Woodward’s Journal You can get most of the story there , Oink is a 15 year old , 1 1/2 ton Water Buffalo that has been the victim of attacks from “yobs” which being American I really have no idea what that is , I’m guessing our equivelant of a punk . Anyway , these thugs have attacked Oink with bricks, set his hay on fire and put soap in his feeding troth . I was so sickened to hear that someone would actually do this, I felt compelled to donate to his fund which was set up to build a security fence to protect him . I found that I wanted to more though , so I have done some Oink design tees ( this being the 2nd ) that I will be uploading , with all proceeds being donated to Oink’s fund . Please take a moment to check out Oink’s Story here and watch the You Tube video here He really is a cute big fella :) thanks for your time , and please bear with me as I upload all the design! ~Steve detail /
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For all those who live in struggle against oppression and struggle…
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its been a while since i dipped my brush in the vector realm
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I still watch her video as it reminds me who I really am.. Here is a bit about this amazing Doctor/woman and her website below. / / Jill Bolte Taylor: Neuroanatomist Brain researcher Jill Bolte Taylor studied her own stroke as it happened—and has become a powerful voice for brain recovery. / Why you should listen to her: One morning, a blood vessel in Jill Bolte Taylor’s brain exploded. As a brain scientist, she realized she had a ringside seat to her own stroke. She watched as her brain functions shut down one by one: motion, speech, memory, self-awareness … Amazed to find herself alive, Taylor spent eight years recovering her ability to think, walk and talk. She has become a spokesperson for stroke recovery and for the possibility of coming back from brain injury stronger than before. In her case, although the stroke damaged the left side of her brain, her recovery unleashed a torrent of creative energy from her right. From her home base in Indiana, she now travels the country on behalf of the Harvard Brain Bank as the “Singin’ Scientist.” “How many brain scientists have been able to study the brain from the inside out? I’ve gotten as much out of this experience of losing my left mind as I have in my entire academic career.” Jill Bolte Taylor
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Acrylic on Wood – (23” X 32”) – Were they seeking escape or salvation?......from America. Dedicated to Phan Thi Kim Phuc and the casualties of the U.S. – Vietnam Conflict.
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A young man I shared a few minutes with in Rwanda.
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As requested by a couple of folks – the noir robot minus the text. I’m here to please :)
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We had just been talking with some of the patients at the hospital in Goma, DR Congo. Every now and then my friend Rebecca Zachariah would dissapear. She’s a Doctor so I figured she was off to see a patient. Well she was but not just for medical reasons. Bec had bought a whole lot of stuffed toys from home. Squeezed them into her pack somehow. Then during the trip, she would nick off quietly every now and then and present a little child with a furry friend. No fanfare. She didn’t even tell me until half way through the trip. These kids hardly have any clothes and certainly have little food. In the case of this gorgeous little girl the only thing we were sure she had was polio. Well at the very least after we left she had a furry bear as well. And do you think she was going to let go of it? Not in a hurry :) This photo is the November shot in the HEAL Africa calendar. – Dog photography – Africa photography / - Beach photography - Black & white photography – Dog photography – Africa photography / - Beach photography - Monotone photography
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Christmas is a time for sharing, giving and being happy with your loved ones. I love this shot.
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My calendar Number 1
by Melinda KerrWell after much agonising I have finally put together a calendar of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda shots I most like. Man it…
Well after much agonising I have finally put together a calendar of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda shots I most like. Man it’s been hard. But for what it’s worth here’s Melly’s choice picks. If anyone would like to purchase one for $30 you can bubblemail me. The $10 profit will go straight, smack into the hands of HEAL Africa. Hold on a minute 13 Melinda Kerr’s for JUST $30!!!! THAT’S DAYLIGHT ROBBERY!!!!!!!!! Seriously if you’re making a charity purchase this year consider HEAL Africa. These guys are awesome and they’re living at the coal face for us as much as anyone else :) / / / / / / / / / / / /
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This is a hard story to read and a tougher one to live...please read it anyway..It's the most important thing I've written on Red Bubble.
by Melinda KerrMany of you guys know my passion for the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda after visiting there as a photojournalist …
Many of you guys know my passion for the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda after visiting there as a photojournalist in April and May this year. Much of our time was spent at HEAL Africa Hospital in Goma, in the eastern province known as South Kivu. South Kivu is considered ‘lawless’ as the various militias roam the countryside and villages quite literally raping and pillaging. I say various because there are many. One consists of the remnants of those who slaughtered their fellow Rwandans 13 years ago, another is from Robert Mugabe’s private army (think ‘Blood Diamond’ – that’s their style). Yet another is secretly supported by the Rwandan government who are lured by the promise of diamonds and more land. You see D.R. Congo has the most natural resources of any country in Africa. This should be a cause for celebration. But it brings heartbreak, despair and the most overwhelming cruelty you could imagine possible. You must wonder at my obsession with this cause. The thing is, it’s invaded my mind and kidnapped my heart. Following is an article about D.R. Congo. It was published in the New York Times in October this year. You remember October. It was less than 4 weeks ago. I hope you read it. It’s not meant to make you sad and turn away. It’s an unashamed attempt to get you involved. In prayers and you bet, in money. These guys don’t want your sympathy they want your help. This is written about another hospital apart from HEAL Africa. But the story is exactly the story of the HEAL Africa hospital. And the people you seein my photos. Take my word for it. I stood in the victims urine and feces. I touched their macheted limbs. And I played with kids who suffer diseases we fix with one of those pesky little things we call needles. Ladies this is a call to action. In February (14th lunch time) my sister here she is… she is hosting a lunch for Lyn Lusi the head of HEAL Africa. Yep she’s going to be in Melbourne. And I am getting a table together. It’s $55 a head and Lyn will tell you first hand what is happening in Congo. Much of it will be about the treatment of women. I’d love love love to have some Red Bubble chicks at my table. $55 for charity, a great meal and words that will change your life, from one of the rarest people you will ever meet. Please please please come. Anyway to the article. Read it please. Knowledge is power. The New York Times October 2007 BUKAVU, Congo — Denis Mukwege, a Congolese gynecologist, cannot bear to listen to the stories his patients tell him anymore. Every day, 10 new women and girls who have been raped show up at his hospital. Many have been so sadistically attacked from the inside out, butchered by bayonets and assaulted with chunks of wood, that their reproductive and digestive systems are beyond repair. “We don’t know why these rapes are happening, but one thing is clear,” said Dr. Mukwege, who works in South Kivu Province, the epicenter of Congo’s rape epidemic. “They are done to destroy women.” Eastern Congo is going through another one of its convulsions of violence, and this time it seems that women are being systematically attacked on a scale never before seen here. According to the United Nations, 27,000 sexual assaults were reported in 2006 in South Kivu Province alone, and that may be just a fraction of the total number across the country. “The sexual violence in Congo is the worst in the world,” said John Holmes, the United Nations under secretary general for humanitarian affairs. “The sheer numbers, the wholesale brutality, the culture of impunity — it’s appalling.” The days of chaos in Congo were supposed to be over. Last year, this country of 66 million people held a historic election that cost $500 million and was intended to end Congo’s various wars and rebellions and its tradition of epically bad government. But the elections have not unified the country or significantly strengthened the Congolese government’s hand to deal with renegade forces, many of them from outside the country. The justice system and the military still barely function, and United Nations officials say Congolese government troops are among the worst offenders when it comes to rape. Large swaths of the country, especially in the east, remain authority-free zones where civilians are at the mercy of heavily armed groups who have made warfare a livelihood and survive by raiding villages and abducting women for ransom. According to victims, one of the newest groups to emerge is called the Rastas, a mysterious gang of dreadlocked fugitives who live deep in the forest, wear shiny tracksuits and Los Angeles Lakers jerseys and are notorious for burning babies, kidnapping women and literally chopping up anybody who gets in their way. United Nations officials said the so-called Rastas were once part of the Hutu militias who fled Rwanda after committing genocide there in 1994, but now it seems they have split off on their own and specialize in freelance cruelty. Honorata Barinjibanwa, an 18-year-old woman with high cheekbones and downcast eyes, said she was kidnapped from a village that the Rastas raided in April and kept as a sex slave until August. Most of that time she was tied to a tree, and she still has rope marks ringing her delicate neck. The men would untie her for a few hours each day to gang-rape her, she said. “I’m weak, I’m angry, and I don’t know how to restart my life,” she said from Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, where she was taken after her captors freed her. She is also pregnant. While rape has always been a weapon of war, researchers say they fear that Congo’s problem has metastasized into a wider social phenomenon. “It’s gone beyond the conflict,” said Alexandra Bilak, who has studied various armed groups around Bukavu, on the shores of Lake Kivu. She said that the number of women abused and even killed by their husbands seemed to be going up and that brutality toward women had become “almost normal.” Malteser International, a European aid organization that runs health clinics in eastern Congo, estimates that it will treat 8,000 sexual violence cases this year, compared with 6,338 last year. The organization said that in one town, Shabunda, 70 percent of the women reported being sexually brutalized. At Panzi Hospital, where Dr. Mukwege performs as many as six rape-related surgeries a day, bed after bed is filled with women lying on their backs, staring at the ceiling, with colostomy bags hanging next to them because of all the internal damage. “I still have pain and feel chills,” said Kasindi Wabulasa, a patient who was raped in February by five men. The men held an AK-47 rifle to her husband’s chest and made him watch, telling him that if he closed his eyes, they would shoot him. When they were finished, Ms. Wabulasa said, they shot him anyway. In almost all the reported cases, the culprits are described as young men with guns, and in the deceptively beautiful hills here, there is no shortage of them: poorly paid and often mutinous government soldiers; homegrown militias called the Mai-Mai who slick themselves with oil before marching into battle; members of paramilitary groups originally from Uganda and Rwanda who have destabilized this area over the past 10 years in a quest for gold and all the other riches that can be extracted from Congo’s exploited soil. The attacks go on despite the presence of the largest United Nations peacekeeping force in the world, with more than 17,000 troops. Few seem to be spared. Dr. Mukwege said his oldest patient was 75, his youngest 3. “Some of these girls whose insides have been destroyed are so young that they don’t understand what happened to them,” Dr. Mukwege said. “They ask me if they will ever be able to have children, and it’s hard to look into their eyes.” No one — doctors, aid workers, Congolese and Western researchers — can explain exactly why this is happening. “That is the question,” said André Bourque, a Canadian consultant who works with aid groups in eastern Congo. “Sexual violence in Congo reaches a level never reached anywhere else. It is even worse than in Rwanda during the genocide.” Impunity may be a contributing factor, Mr. Bourque added, saying that very few of the culprits are punished. Many Congolese aid workers denied that the problem was cultural and insisted that the widespread rapes were not the product of something ingrained in the way men treated women in Congolese society. “If that were the case, this would have showed up long ago,” said Wilhelmine Ntakebuka, who coordinates a sexual violence program in Bukavu. Instead, she said, the epidemic of rapes seems to have started in the mid-1990s. That coincides with the waves of Hutu militiamen who escaped into Congo’s forests after exterminating 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus during Rwanda’s genocide 13 years ago. Mr. Holmes said that while government troops might have raped thousands of women, the most vicious attacks had been carried out by Hutu militias. “These are people who were involved with the genocide and have been psychologically destroyed by it,” he said. Mr. Bourque called this phenomenon “reversed values” and said it could develop in heavily traumatized areas that had been steeped in conflict for many years, like eastern Congo. This place, one of the greenest, hilliest and most scenic slices of central Africa, continues to reverberate from the aftershocks of the genocide next door. Take the recent fighting near Bukavu between the Congolese Army and Laurent Nkunda, a dissident general who commands a formidable rebel force. Mr. Nkunda is a Congolese Tutsi who has accused the Congolese Army of supporting Hutu militias, which the army denies. Mr. Nkunda says his rebel force is simply protecting Tutsi civilians from being victimized again. But his men may be no better. Willermine Mulihano said she was raped twice — first by Hutu militiamen two years ago and then by Nkunda soldiers in July. Two soldiers held her legs apart, while three others took turns violating her. “When I think about what happened,” she said, “I feel anxious and brokenhearted.” She is also lonely. Her husband divorced her after the first rape, saying she was diseased. In some cases, the attacks are on civilians already caught in the cross-fire between warring groups. In one village near Bukavu where 27 women were raped and 18 civilians killed in May, the attackers left behind a note in broken Swahili telling the villagers that the violence would go on as long as government troops were in the area. The United Nations peacekeepers here seem to be stepping up efforts to protect women. Recently, they initiated what they call “night flashes,” in which three truckloads of peacekeepers drive into the bush and keep their headlights on all night as a signal to both civilians and armed groups that the peacekeepers are there. Sometimes, when morning comes, 3,000 villagers are curled up on the ground around them. But the problem seems bigger than the resources currently devoted to it. Panzi Hospital has 350 beds, and though a new ward is being built specifically for rape victims, the hospital sends women back to their villages before they have fully recovered because it needs space for the never-ending stream of new arrivals. Dr. Mukwege, 52, said he remembered the days when Bukavu was known for its stunning lake views and nearby national parks, like Kahuzi-Biega. “There used to be a lot of gorillas in there,” he said. “But now they’ve been replaced by much more savage beasts.”
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