Ben Affleck is good will hunting – for the Congo. According to CNN, the 37 year-old actor launched on Monday a grassroots initiative to assist communities ravaged by war in one of the most troubled places on earth, the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Affleck, who just returned from a trip to the DRC, told Christiane Amanpour that he had long heard about the crisis in Congo, which has left more than 5 million people dead over the past 12 years, but only came to understand the scope of the humanitarian crisis by seeing it with his own eyes. Check out the video:
“The more I traveled, the more I was struck about it, the more I fell in love with the people, the more I was horrified by what was happening. And the more I did, I started to develop this idea of partnering with the Congolese people and wanting to empower community-based organizations there that were doing extraordinary work,” Affleck said.
He’s named his efforts the Eastern Congo Initiative, which seeks to to support community organizations working to help rape victims and to rebuild from a decade of war. ”There are folks who are working to protect those who are suffering from gender-based violence, who help child soldiers to advance the educational needs of the citizens there.” Affleck said. “There are people who live in the communities, who are from there, who understand the relationships there, who are Africans finding solutions to African problems. And when I was there, what I saw was that those were, in my view, the most effective folks at meeting those goals.”
Widespread rape is one of the biggest problems in the DRC. Congolese human rights attorney Sylvie Maunga Mbanga said the government needs to focus attention on ending a culture of impunity towards rapists, especially when those rapes are committed by members of the Congolese army. ”We need to punish the perpetrators of sexual violence against women,” she said.
For more information about The Eastern Congo Initiative, visit their official website.
