Deep Reflection: Skills for Social Change 2014

Well Hello There,

It's been quite a while since my last blog entry and that's because I have been absolutely swamped. Along with taking two Ph.D. courses this semester I took a French class, had two research assistant positions and took on leadership roles both with the Just Minerals Campaign AND the Graduate Students Association at the University of Ottawa, so while my course work was a little bit less intense this semester I was just a busy as the last.

As you may know I'm currently in Antigonish (pronounced Anigonish) Nova Scotia at the Coady Institute participating in a course for Skills for Social Change. This blog post serves the dual purpose of updating you on what I've been up to and fulfilling the course requirement of presenting a reflection on my time here.

Things are about to get intense.

Skills for Social Change is a course geared towards young people aged 19-35 with some leadership experience and an interest in social change and community development. It's hosted at the Coady Institute which offers courses in community and international development to people from around the world. The class has provided a broad overview of topics related to development including power analysis, a focus on theoretical lenses, asset based community development and more. We have also been exposed to a wide variety of tools that can be used for social change including advocacy, theatre of the oppressed and creating Zines. We've had a wide range of guest lecturers and community visitors who have shared their experiences in community development and activism with us.

The facilitators of the course have also created a great deal of space for personal reflection including daily group and individual reflections. Further the assignments for the course are all designed to reflect our personal interests and goals, including this assignment on reflecting the assignment that we've been asked to write on the process of reflecting.

So I've been thinking. Quite a lot and reflecting everyday very deeply on the topics we cover in class, as well as my concurrent and competing roles as a Ph.D. student and human rights activist. I'm going to try to make sense of these reflections below.

Academia

Academically this course has been very interesting for me. Although I'm quite familiar with some of the topics we have covered in the course from my previous academic experience, our facilitators and guest lecturers have offered new approaches to old problems. Most significantly the program introduced the idea of asset-based community development which focuses on the assets that already exist within a community that can support community development. This approach is consistent with my interest in locally driven approaches to peacebuilding and offers the prospect of moving beyond identifying the needs of individuals and communities to exploring ways in which they can drive their own development and peacebuilding processes. I am planning to integrate this new approach into the research design for my Ph.D. thesis either as a component of my primary research question or as a significant secondary question to be explored. I'm excited to be able to integrate this approach into my work as it offers a greater potential for transformative action through my research process. 

In addition, a large portion of this program has focused on the role of power in development, advocacy and peace work. It has explored both privilege and power structures both which relate to my research. First, my understanding of privilege has shifted dramatically. Where I previously thought of privilege in terms of binaries; white vs. not, rich vs poor, male vs female etc, through discussions in our class about how we each understood our privilege I now understand privilege as something that is both contextual and deeply personal. I also feel that it's presence or absence is not necessarily visible. By understanding privilege in this way I feel that there is more capacity to empathize with people on either side of the binary and create space for solidarity. Personally, I also feel that this reflection will help me to better understand my privilege and perceived privilege in relation to my research participants and develop more innovative approaches to engaging with them.

Finally, in relation to power structure I feel that I can now use a tool called the "power cube" to consider power in relation to peacebuilding at the local and international level. The power cube considers the multiple dimensions of power including: open, invited and un-invited spaces; visible, hidden and invisible power; and the global, national and local levels. 

Activism

I also feel that the new insights I've gathered academically can inform my approach to activism. But wait, there's more! On top of these new conceptual approaches we also have been exposed to a large number of tools and skills for activism. These include understanding that advocacy can be undertaken for, with and by affected groups. We also learned how to make Zines, about theatre activities that explore oppression, how to develop web tools, how to better understand the corporate systems that influence the food we purchase from grocery stores and even about solidarity with indigenous groups in Canada. 

It was a lot to take in I know, but I also have an idea of where these insights will take me next. As many people know I have spent the last year working as part of the Just Minerals Campaign as a platform to create greater awareness for peacebuilding in the DRC. While I've heard lots of feedback from Canadians on the issue I really have no idea how Congolese civilians feel about this initiative or whether it has any potential to contribute to peace. I feel that the campaign and subsequent advocacy work could be improved by making connections with groups in the DRC and moving away from advocacy for towards advocacy with or even by conflict affected people from the region. 

I'm hoping when I go to the DRC that I might be able to use some of the tools I was exposed to at the Coady Institute to conduct my research and that the results I collect will not only contribute to my research but also to a movement for meaningful participation by Congolese groups in Western advocacy on the issue. 

Personal Reflection

While I appreciate the insights that this course has brought to my academic and activist pursuits I feel that the most valuable insights I've gained through this course have been deeply personal and affect my life in a much deeper manner. 

By asking us to reflect on our experiences throughout the course I have taken the opportunity reflect on many things including what characteristics, assets and skills make up who I am; how I should create space for myself in the midst of my busy academic and professional schedule and how I can be more open with my friends, family and allies. 

On the very first day of class we were asked to draw body maps outlining who we are at our core, what we're doing, where we are going and what is holding us back. We were then asked to present on these issues. I don't enjoy reflecting about myself very much and I like talking about myself even less. Yet through doing this activity and subsequent ones I felt for the first time like I was able to identify what some of my assets and skills were in addition to the usual personality characteristics I usually identify as representing who I am. These include that I am very passionate and driven, focused on my area of study and activism and also that I am an excellent facilitator, listener, that I am resilient and other traits that make me stronger and able to bounce back from adversity. I also can articulate that I put great importance in my roles as a friend, family member, human rights activist, student, facilitator and community member. 

Participating in this course also gave me an opportunity to start creating more space for myself. After all of this reflection on who I am I started realizing that there are certain elements in my life that I would like to change so that I can be a more active community member and commit more time to initiatives that matter to me. While here, I acknowledged that the institution I'm currently studying at may not be the best possible choice given it's overarching approach to development which focuses heavily on international institutions and positivist approaches to knowledge which contradict my interest in local knowledge and peacebuilding from below. I'm not sure that it's worth trying to make a change in this regard but I feel better having acknowledged it. I also think that it gives me more space to challenge these dominant modes of thinking and acting. I'm also planning on limiting my presence at school and formal work to about 45 hours per week which will allow me to put more time into other things like improv, photography, swing dancing, involvement in different community activism initiatives (I'm leaning towards idle no more because it seems hypocritical to be supporting indigenous knowledge abroad but not in Canada) and my budding relationship. I think that investing more time in me will likely lead to being more effective in my professional capacities as well and be more strategic about what direction I choose to go in life. There is a lot of pressure in academia to go all in but when I look back I want to know that I contributed to my community and enjoyed life rather than being stressed all the time and stuck in my windowless office in the ivory tower of academia while life passes me by. I think that this new approach also compliments steps I've already been taking to create space for myself including participating in yoga and meditation practices and healthy lifestyle choices.

Finally, I've decided that it's time to be more open with my friends, family and other co-conspirators. I've known for a long time that I don't share as openly when I feel like something in my past is difficult to understand or relate to. I've also realized through this course that I also often hold back to make sure that I don't upset other people or ensure that they have a choice to speak. However, I feel like I've taken the opportunity to share a little bit more with people here than I normally would, and for the most part the outcome has been good. It has led in some cases to my classmates opening up with me about what they feel might relate or other deeply personal issues. It has created spaces for empathy and support and better understandings of each of our journeys.

It is for this reason that I've chosen to present my final reflection for this course as a blog post. I want to share my deep reflection with my friends and family who read this blog and let them in on more of what's been going on in my life.

This process of reflection hasn't been easy. At times it's left me exhausted and with a bad case of the grumps but I really do feel that it's created the opportunity for some of the personal growth to occur that I've been seeking for a relatively long time.  

With love from Antigonish,

K. 

P.S. Our final assignment for the course is a community action plan! Mine is on creating a solidarity movement in Canada for locally driven approaches to peacebuilding in the DRC! More to follow. 

Canadian Interests in the DRC

Ever since my trip to South Africa in 2009, where I had the opportunity to interview Congolese refugees about their experiences of armed violence in the deadliest war since WWII I have struggled with the question of why average Canadians should care. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is very distant from Canada geographically, it is the site of a complex conflict which is difficult to describe at best, and the scale of death is certain to deter any call for Canadian boots to arrive on the ground there. 

The introduction of the Conflict Minerals Act by Paul Dewar in March has been an avenue for me to start talking to other Canadians about the conflict, some of the stories that I've heard directly from people who have experienced the war why morally we are required to intervene. In addition to founding the KW Just Minerals Campaign, since my return to Ottawa I've been working with Partnership Africa Canada and Paul Dewar's office to assist with public outreach pertaining to conflict minerals. 

Through this process I have learned about how deeply Canadian mining and electronic corporations are invested in the minerals which are extracted from the DRC, some of which are extracted and sold by groups who use the profits to buy guns and attack civilian populations. I also have become familiar with various initiatives in addition to Paul Dewar's bill which are being undertaken to curb those practices.

Yet, when Canadian Foreign policy seems to continue to shift away from any promotion of human rights, sustainable development and international law, and in the context of emerging information about atrocities occurring in the Central African Republic, Syria and South Sudan I began to wonder whether the Congo was relevant.

It is, and turns out that the answer lies precisely where I started.

This evening I attended a CIC event which featured a discussion of the role of NATO in Afghanistan which featured two prominent scholars in the field and one retired commander of the Canadian Armed Forces, Lt. General Andrew Leslie. When commenting on the possibility of future engagement of Canadian forces in peacekeeping missions, Leslie suggested that Canadian foreign policy is now driven primarily by economic interests which for numerous reasons prevent the commitment of troops to peacekeeping missions, which is particularly relevant in the DRC because of the commercial economic interests of Canadian mining companies. 

He went on to highlight that historically there was another case in which Canada chose to exercise its commitment to human rights and international law over its economic interests in another African country which held their potential for lucrative mining investment. That case was when Canada chose to impose sanctions against the Apartheid South African government. 

I believe that the majority of Canadians still hold the same values that led us to oppose Apartheid during the 1980's. We believe in human rights, racial and gender equality, freedom and democratic governance. In fact research has found that Canadians strongly link their identity to the promotion of these values through our foreign policy. 

As Canadians we either have the opportunity to allow the government to continue to act in the economic interests of large corporations through our foreign policy or to represent fundamental values which make up both our individual and collective identity. By standing up for human rights and democratic values in a country where we do have a vested economic interest, we will be demonstrating an even stronger commitment to those values.

To conclude, I think that Canadians should not only support the Conflict Minerals Act but also greater efforts towards achieving sustainable peace in the DRC because it represents a Canadian identity that is founded upon human rights, equality, freedom and democracy.

Sign the conflict minerals petition: http://petition.ndp.ca/conflictfree

2013: A Year for Gratitude

On January 1, 2013 I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. I had a job that I found incredibly frustrating on good days, few friends in Kitchener, where I had moved for said job and a lot of uncertainty about the future. 

However, I hadn't lost hope. I started the year by creating a gratitude jar with small notes of what I had to be grateful for. I applied to two Ph.D. programs, continued to apply for other jobs, wen swing dancing and led about 300 people around the World in committing 14 random acts of kindness for Valentine's Day. 

At the end of March my maternity leave contract ended. I didn't have a new job or a solid idea of what I was going to do next. I was waiting to hear about my Ph.D. application to the University of Ottawa and a hiring process at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. I also felt extremely discouraged by how I perceived my job performance at the position I was leaving, thinking that if I couldn't cut it as an admin assistant, I wasn't going to cut it as much else. 

Things seemed pretty bleak. However, now I can see that the decisions I made in the first two weeks of April have changed my life in dramatically wonderful ways. 

One of the first things I did when my job ended was start volunteering for World Accord where David Barth and Nelson Rosales allowed me to help them design a volunteering program for the organization. 

In that same week my room mate Brock and I decided to try to mobilize people in KW to advocate on behalf of the Conflict Minerals Act which had just had its first reading in Parliament on March 26th.

Over the weekend I decided to attend an improv workshop held by Theatre on the Edge, returning to one of my favorite activities after exactly 5 years. 

In the second week, I was accepted into the International Development Ph.D. at the University of Ottawa. 

Here's how these choices played out. Over the summer I volunteered with World Accord as their volunteer coordinator, where I had my first opportunity to supervise others. This experience introduced me to a number of wonderful volunteers who challenged and inspired me in their own ways. I also had the opportunity to organize World Accord's annual cycling fundraiser Cycle for Sustainability which combined three of the things I love: community outreach, event planning and fundraising. This was a challenging experience and I definitely made some mistakes but I am so incredibly grateful for having had the opportunity to work with World Accord. 

While I was spending my days at World Accord I was spending my evenings with the KW Just Minerals Campaign. Brock and I managed to mobilize about 8 reliable co-conspirators by early June and we held the organization's first event, attended community events and supported activities in Paul Dewar's office. This experience was also very exciting and introduced me to new people in KW and helped me to get a feel for their activist community. I was so grateful to have had the opportunity both to lead and also to leave the organization in inspired and competent hands when I left in the autumn. 

I also began attending Theatre On the Edge workshops religiously and became friends with its members for whom the description of "salt of the earth" would be a dramatic understatement. They even let me perform in a show.

And so, the decisions I made in that first week of unemployment resulted in me making more friends than I ever thought possible in such a short period of time, gaining meaningful work experience and falling in love with KW.

At the end of the summer it was time to head off to Ottawa, my accommodations set up with one of my best friends, Alex Keenan (who never lost faith in my eventual return to Ottawa), to start my Ph.D. The first month was a bit of a slog, I think my office mate is a bit surprised that I didn't drop out, but then things started picking up. I have two incredible research assistantships, one working with a Prof who focuses on the role of NATO in Afghanistan who has been very supportive and the other working in a public outreach capacity with Partnership Africa Canada. I am also now one of the volunteer coordinators for the national Just Minerals Campaign.  At school I'm the external representative for our departmental graduate student association as well as taking French courses along with my mandatory classes. As you can imagine, this leaves me with a pretty tight schedule but I absolutely love everything I'm doing, which makes the times things seem overwhelming seem not so bad.

I abandoned my gratitude jar after about six weeks, and it's a good thing I did because this year has given me so much to be grateful for they never would have fit in that box. 

While I appreciate the love and support I've received from everyone who made this year possible I want to thank a couple of people specifically.

David Barth and Nelson Rozales: Thank you for inviting me to work with you at World Accord. I continue to be inspired by your work; you helped me to develop invaluable skills and I appreciate your guidance. 

Brockenshire: Thanks for encouraging me to do something in support of the Just Minerals Campaign, without you it never would have happened. Also thank you for putting up with me as your grumpy room mate in the pre-April 2013 period..

Shayne Sangster: Thanks for being a reliable volunteer, source of advice and generally restoring my faith in humanity.

Alex Keenan: For never giving up on me and being an awesome room mate :).

Everyone at TOtE: For making me feel so welcome and sharing yourselves with me. As Adam Benjamin has pointed out on several occasions I love you all.

Craig: For being my nemesis in public, and being an incredible supporter and cheerleader in private. 

Susan: For giving amazing hugs, organizing movie nights, introducing me to new boardgames and for being a reliable source of transportation. 

Folks at Hep Cats (especially Greg, Mark, David, Amanda, Sara, Nigel, Kristin and Kevin): Thanks for teaching me, leading me and laughing with me. 

Everyone who helped me move to Ottawa (Brockenshire, Sarah, Taylor, Adam Becevello, Robin and Julian): I honestly could not have done it without you and I still have no idea how to repay you.

Finally, I am grateful to my classmates and profs who have worked alongside me, teaching, guiding and sharing their talents with me. 

Below are some of the more memorable photographs from this year:

Free Hugs in a snow storm of Valentine's Day

First Screening of Blood in the Mobile with KW Just Minerals Campaign

Amanda signs the Conflict Minerals Act Petition at Open Streets Waterloo

To Remember is to Work for Peace

Every year on Remembrance Day I take the time to reflect on peace, freedom and remembrance. 

This morning I woke up to a radio commentary chastising people who choose to wear white poppies instead of red ones to signify their pacifism. As a peace and human rights activist it was disheartening to hear the DJs lam-bast people who choose to remember in a different way.

People who have experienced or participated in war live with it's consequences everyday. The sad truth is that our government does little to support veterans, the minimum to support refugees most of whom have experienced violence and war, and almost nothing to support international peace initiatives. 

So one day a year they fly fighter fighter jets over the capital, play bag pipes and make speeches and they say that they remember. 

If you remember the people who fought in World War I and II and if you remember those who lost their lives in genocides and armed attacks in which we failed to intervene,it is not only for one day a year. 

So please remember tomorrow. Take it as an opportunity to be kind, supportive and loving to your neighbors, to support community development to make hard lives a little bit easier, and to promote peace in your own life and also to our leaders. 

Recall that to remember, is to work for peace.

Living a Life Free From Violence; Blog Action Day 2013

My blog post today is part of Blog Action Day 2013 with a focus on Human Rights.

Human Rights is a broad topic, so broad in fact that I hold an undergraduate degree in the subject. I might have written on any human rights issue but today I'm writing about the right which has always been the most important in my mind, the right to life, liberty and security of the person, which I'll be describing here as the freedom from violence.

The right to life, liberty and security of the person is the first right listed in the UN Declaration on Human Rights. It is also found at the front of many national rights documents including in Canada and the U.S. and the idea enjoys some primacy when discussed as part of a hierarchy of rights. Its spirit is also at the root of other rights including the freedom from torture, however I feel it is adequate enough to say that without life, liberty or security of the person it would be difficult to enjoy any other human right.

Why am I calling it freedom from violence? I feel that security of the person and the right to life necessarily suggest freedom from violence. I also feel that violence is a private threat to the enjoyment of the basic tenets of human rights as well as a public issue. While the state may not overtly exercise violence over a population, the failure to intervene in private violations has many of the same results, the inability to access the means necessary for a basic standard of living.

One of the reasons I'm focusing on violence for this blog is that September 21, 2013 was a difficult day for my friends. Several of my friends lost their friends in the siege of Westgate Mall in Nairobi Kenya. The tragically ironic part was that those lost included people who were working towards an end of violence and poverty in East Africa and other places in the World. It was also a bad day for my friend Mzi who was nearly beaten to death for his watch and wallet in Cape Town South Africa. Although I work with issues relating to violence on a daily basis I was not prepared for these events to affect people who I am close to and gave me the opportunity to see violence from this very real and close perspective. 

I'm also writing this post for the people who I've met through my work both academically and as a development practitioner. As an academic I have had the opportunities to interview individuals from the Democratic Republic of the Congo who spoke about the violence perpetrated against their family and friends and sometimes themselves. Sadly these stories make up only some of the statistics of the over five million people who have died there, the 400,000 women and men who have been raped and millions more who have been forced to flee their homes. 

As a development practitioner the majority of my work has concentrated on victims of violence. The refugees that I have worked with in Canada have shared glimpses of their past lives and what brought them to Canada but the cooperative members I worked with were much more direct. I worked with entire communities that had been displaced by the Lord's Resistance Army who primarily described peace as the absence of violent conflict and the presence of development products such as education, healthcare and improved markets at which to sell their goods and produce. 

Violence can be perpetrated by individuals, groups, corporations and states. Each individual case is different while equally horrible. However, there are some universally accepted and experienced consequences of violence. Of course people experience trauma, injuries, displacement and sometimes death. Violence has a societal impact too. It can lead to missed days of work, the inability to fulfill societal and community obligations and it can also lead to pervasive insecurity. Armed violence in particular has a known link to stagnant or even the reversal of development in low income countries and fragile states meaning that not only are people in countries such as Syria and the DRC victims of war but they also cannot access health care if they are sick or injured, their children cannot go to school and it is incredibly difficult for local farmers and entrepreneurs to do their jobs.

We need to do better for each other to ensure that everyone can enjoy a basic quality of life which includes the respect of their basic human rights.

On an individual level we can do quite a lot to effect change. We can live our own lives peacefully which should be reflected not only in our actions but in our language and thoughts towards one another. We can support friends and neighbours who have been affected by violence whether it came from spousal abuse or violent crime. We can also support those in our own communities by volunteering for organizations that support victims of violence including women's shelters, distress lines, refugee settlement programs and other. 

Nationally we should hold our governments accountable for actions they take both nationally and internationally that may result in violence when it is safe to do so. This may include responding to police brutality, economic and political divestment from weapons manufacturers and the support of peaceful interactions between countries. 

Internationally we can support organizations who provide humanitarian support to the victims of violence including the Red Cross and MSF and those who work towards preventing violence and human rights violations including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Project Ploughshares in Canada and many others. 

In Peace. 

Why the U.S. Shouldn't Unilaterally Intervene in Syria

My desire to comment on the crisis in Syria has been creeping up gradually over the last few months. With increasing calls for intervention in Syria since the discovery of a chemical weapons attack against civilians, the United States and some of their allies have made a call for a military intervention. While measures, sanctions and possibly a military intervention is needed to end the civil war in Syria  the U.S. and their allies should not act alone. Here's why.

International Law
Under the United Nations Charter a state can only use military force to defend itself or to respond as part of a U.N. sanctioned mission to an act of international aggression. In order for the use of force to be legal under international law the United Nations Security Council must pass a resolution justifying the use of force. Such a resolution has not passed and is unlikely to pass due to opposition from China and Russia. 

There is precedent for a unilateral intervention from regional defense organizations including the NATO Intervention in Kosovo, however such action undermines the ability of the U.N. to function on an ongoing basis and could have significant political and diplomatic consequences given the opposition of China and Russia to a strike. However, the U.S. looks like it is positioning itself to act alone for which there is no precedent. The U.S. cannot justify an invasion under the U.N. Charter because it has not been attacked and the nature of the human rights perpetration committed by Syria are not international acts of aggression. 

Another legal reason the United States may not be the best state to intervene in Syria unilaterally is the fact that it has not ratified many of the major humanitarian laws including the 3rd and 4th Geneva Conventions. Further, the U.S. has shown an increasing and ongoing lack of respect for other international legal norms including territorial sovereignty and legal rights (such as the right to a fair trial) through the use of drones to attack targets in the Middle East. Lack of adherence to these conventions could contribute to negligent and excessive loss of life, poor treatment of prisoners of war and increased civilian deaths.

Impact on Syrian Civilians

A military intervention in Syria is likely to worsen the suffering of civilians in Syria already affected by the actions of Al-Assad and rebel groups. Some civilians would be likely to die as a result of military strikes that missed their marks or that were targeting officials hiding in civilian areas. Many more civilians would be affected by a loss of critical infrastructure including a loss of electricity, water and phone lines as a result of an attack. Depending on the length of the intervention civilians might also have difficulty leaving their homes to find food and go to work dramatically worsening an already tense humanitarian situation.

What is more worrying is the potential impact of an impending or full-attack on the action of Al-Assad. If, as media reports suggest, Al-Assad has used chemical weapons against his own populations there is nothing stopping him from doing it again. It is possible that if the U.S. decides to strike before exhausting all other options that Al-Assad may launch further chemical attacks. This risk is also present with interventions led by an international contingent but somewhat less likely if Syria's allies are involved in the intervention. 

Diplomacy and the United Nations 

There are many alternatives to a unilateral use of force by the U.S. to end the crisis in Syria. If the UN concludes that a chemical attack has occurred several steps can be taken to remove Al-Assad and protect civilian populations. The U.N. Charter also includes provisions for peacekeeping missions which, if given a Chapter 7 mandates such as what is currently in place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, has the capacity to use force not only to protect civilians but also to disarm aggressive forces.  

A softer approach might include the use of political or economic sanctions, the indictment of Al-Assad by the International Criminal Court for War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity and also negotiations. 

Not only would a U.N. sponsored approach protect civilian lives it would also reduce the risk of raising global military and political tensions between China, Russia and the U.S. It would also strengthen the role of the U.N. in international peacekeeping measures and increase their effectiveness. 

If this is an issue that you're concerned about you can always contact your MP to express your concern. If you would like to contribute to efforts to help civilians in Syria or the over 2 million refugees created from the civil war, consider supporting MSF or the International Red Cross. 

Launching the KW Just Minerals Campaign

As you may know I wrote my M.A. thesis on the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and that I remain an advocate for development-based peacebuilding in the eastern part of the country which continues to be plagued by violence perpetrated against civilian populations.

The conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been ongoing since 1998, has resulted in over 5 million deaths as a direct and indirect result of the conflict and the rape of over 400,000 women, girls and occasionally men.

The conflict has been perpetuated by a large number of actors based on a variety of motivations including politics, ethnicity and inequality. However, a great deal of the conflict has also been fueled by access to resources. The DRC has one of the largest mineral deposits in the world including rubber, gold, diamonds and coltan, a mineral compound found in most cell phones. Rebel and foreign armies have continually sold minerals acquired through illegal mines to fund their involvement in the conflict contributing to the humanitarian disaster described above.

Conflict Minerals are purchased for further processing, smelting, refinement and are used in our cell phones, laptops, televisions and other electronics. Canadian companies contribute to the trade of conflict minerals through the purchase of raw materials from the DRC at all stages of the refinement process. As consumers we treat our electronics like their disposable and toss them aside so that we can have the newest technology while people in the DRC pay with their lives. 

On March 26, 2013 MP Paul Dewar introduced the Conflict Minerals Act, Bill C-486 to Parliament. The Act, if passed, would require Canadian mining companies to show due diligence when purchasing minerals from the Great Lakes Region of Africa (including the DRC) and to report the source of their minerals annually. This would allow consumers to make informed choices about the products they buy and hold mining companies accountable for their actions overseas. (It's worth noting the United States has already passed similar legislation under the Dodd Franks Act.).

The next week my roommate Brockenshire looked at me and asked "are we going to do something about this?" and all I could do was smile and say yes. 

Soon I was in touch with Paul Dewar's office learning about the grass roots base for the campaign and how they wanted average people to support the Act. So Brockenshire and I got to work recruiting team members. 

In mid-April we formed the KW Just Minerals Campaign. As a group we are committed to creating awareness and gaining support for the Conflict Minerals Act and creating awareness about conflict minerals and the conflict in the DRC.

Soon we had a group of 8 who worked together to hold the KW Just Mineral Campaign's first event, a screening of the film "Blood in the Mobile." The film documents the narrator's journey into the Eastern DRC to discover the source of the minerals in his cell phone. In the film he comes face to face the corruption which is rife among Congolese officials, he meets a former child labourer who takes him to the Walike mine where he had worked where they mine coltan which is used in capacitors for cell phones. The film actually shows the inside of one of the mines and the deplorable conditions that artisinal miners work in and makes the link that profits from the mines are used to supply weapons to armed groups clear. 

The film does miss a couple of points as well. It doesn't do the complexity of the conflict in the DRC justice nor does it give any credence to the possibility of a Congolese sponsored solution to the ongoing violence. 

The film screening included a call to action from the Kitchener Center NDP Federal Candidate Peter Thurley, an introduction to the history of the conflict presented by myself and a follow-up discussion presented by two of our other members Cassandra and Nadine. 

We had about 30 people attend the screening, which I'm told is a great turn out for an event of it's nature. Of those thirty attendees 4 signed up to become members of our organizing committee. The event even gained media attention from the Rogers' Cable show News Talk Local as well as from the Kitchener Waterloo CBC Radio Morning. 

We didn't stop there. We've been attending community events including Open Streets Uptown Waterloo and the KW Non-Violence Festival. We have received more than 100 signatures for the Official Parliamentary Petition in support of the conflict Minerals Act.



In the last week I had the opportunity to do an extensive interview for the Waterloo Record about our campaign and today I gave a presentation to the Engineers Without Borders Toronto Professional Chapter against mineral exploitation and the conflict in the DRC. 

I'm sad that I'm leaving this all behind to move back to Ottawa but I can't wait to see where my friends and co-conspirators take the campaign. 

Want to read Bill C-486?
http://www.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?Language=E&Mode=1&DocId=6062040

Want to sign the official parliamentary petition?
http://petition.ndp.ca/conflictfree