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Soldiers forced Rose Mapendo to listen as they tortured and executed her husband. This happened in 1998 when the Congolese military imprisoned Rose (a Tutsi), her husband and seven of their children during government-backed massacres of Tutsi civilians, ethnic violence that spread like a contagion with the Rwandan genocide. Prison camps became death camps, mocking the solemn promise, “Never Again.” As the world looked elsewhere, captors condemned entire families of Tutsi to death. Those spared would die of disease and lack of food in the killing grounds and under the watchful eye of their masters.
Eight months after imprisonment, suffering from severe malnutrition, Rose gave birth prematurely to twins on a concrete prison floor. They weighed four pounds each. With no clothes, no medicine, and barely any food or other resources to help her twins and children survive, Rose drew on reserves of courage, wit, and strength of will. She used a stick to cut the umbilical cords and a piece of hair to tie them off. Malnourished herself, Rose’s milk could not sustain the twins, so she soaked rags in black tea and coaxed her babies to suckle the pieces of cloth. She named the twins after the camp commandants in order to gain their favor and lessen the chances of execution. When soldiers burst into the large prison cell to rape and kill her oldest daughter, Rose grabbed hold of her and refused to let go. And when a soldier held a gun to Rose’s head and told her to release her daughter, Rose just tightened her grip and closed her eyes. After sixteen months of daily confrontations with death, its complicit agents intended to transfer Rose and her family to another prison; instead, through extraordinary luck, they ended up in a protection center for Tutsis near Congo’s capital. A US-rescue team arrived in that center a few days later and evacuated Rose to a refugee camp in Cameroon, from where she resettled to Phoenix, Arizona. Previously illiterate, Rose started school, learned to read, write, and drive. Most recently, Rose helped to establish a humanitarian aid organization –– all the while working full-time and studying for her US citizenship test.
Rose Mapendo is a spokesperson for Mapendo International, named in honor of her story and founded to rescue and protect other African refugees, like Rose, whose lives are in immediate danger and who have nowhere to turn for help. The organization has launched a rescue mission in collaboration with the US Department of State and the UN to evacuate refugee survivors of other massacres in Africa. Mapendo International has also built a medical clinic in Kenya to treat HIV positive refugees and to care for torture victims, rape survivors, widows, and orphans whose struggle to survive goes unnoticed, undiminished, and unattended.
In Swahili, Mapendo means “great love.” Rose Mapendo embodies all of those words. She has transformed despair, horror and loss into a message of love, faith, and living without fear. “Listening to Rose Mapendo changed my life,” said one person who recently heard Rose talk. Her speeches around the country have moved thousands of people to act upon their conscience, and she has given her all to help Mapendo International save the lives of countless refugees. But it’s really at home, day in and day out, where Rose is the hero. As a single mother, she raises nine children, all of whom attend school and college. All of her children have grown up honest, respectful, and generous. They look up to Rose as a role model. So might we all. She is a singular and inspiring example of someone who has survived the most extreme violence, destruction, and trauma to love, to create, and to restore–successfully raising a family, helping save other refugees, and inspiring people with the power of hope. Those who listen to Rose understand that, no matter what the odds or the hardship, one person has within him or herself the power to attain a better and more meaningful future.
To learn more about Rose and her cause, and how you can make a difference, please visit:
www.mapendo.org.
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