NPR affiliate WPSU, the radio station of Penn State, recently featured Professor Lee Ann De Reus explaining her belief in Ubuntu, an African philosophy that says each of us is part of an interconnected global community, and its relation to her experience interviewing women who had survived rape in Congo. De Reus traveled to eastern Congo last summer as a 2009 Carl Wilkins Fellow through Genocide Intervention Network and blogged for Enough Said while she was there.
On the radio program, De Reus recounts her amazement that the majority of the women who shared their horrific stories with her had forgiven their attackers. Yet she ultimately realized that, “when there is forgiveness, there is hope and part of our souls is restored.” The connection between all people dictates that everyone has a duty to uphold the highest standards of humanity. De Reus said she has “a responsibility now, to the women of Congo, to serve as witness, messenger, and advocate – to tell others about the crisis, to share the powerful stories of forgiveness, survival and hope, to work for change. I believe in practicing ubuntu, so we can all be fully human.”
Read and listen to De Reus tell her own story on the program This I Believe.
Photo: Lee Ann De Reus and a child in Bukavu, Congo (WPSU)