Failure™ Magazine

Lisa Shannon, a Thousand Sisters

One woman’s journey to the Congo, “the worst place on earth to be a woman.”

Written by Jason Zasky   Filed under History, Life

Lisa Shannon with her “sisters” in the Congo.

Five years ago, Lisa J. Shannon was living a comfortable life in the Pacific Northwest, with a home, a fiancé, and a successful photography production company. Then one fateful day in January 2005, she watched a segment on Oprah about the plight of women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which opened her eyes to the ongoing atrocities in that war-torn central African nation. Feeling called to help, she started by organizing a 30-mile trail run, which raised enough money ($28,000) to sponsor 80 Congolese women through Women for Women International. Emboldened by her success, she went on to found a national organization called Run for Congo Women, and began visiting the women her run sponsored.

In her new memoir “A Thousand Sisters” (Seal Press), Shannon shares the remarkable stories of her “sisters” in the Congo, as well as the trials and tribulations of working as a grassroots activist for and within the borders of a failed state—a country wracked by extreme violence, sexual abuse, torture and murder. Just back from her third trip to the Congo—a two-month foray into the far northeast of the country, an area heavily impacted by Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army—Shannon was kind enough to speak with Failure about the book, the Congolese women she has met, and possible diplomatic solutions to a conflict that has raged since the mid-1990s.

Take me back to January 24, 2005. When you watched Oprah’s segment on the women of the Congo, what was your immediate reaction?
First, I was shocked that I was learning about the deadliest war since World War II, and had never even heard of it. On a personal level, hearing the stories and listening to the women talk, I felt really moved. I always thought of myself as the kind of person who, if I had been alive during the Holocaust or had known about the genocide in Rwanda [1994], would have done something.

Oprah magazine also ran an article in conjunction with the TV piece. One woman in particular talked about being dragged into the forest and begging for her life. The militia said that even if they killed her it wouldn’t matter. They saw her more like an animal than a human being, and told her that if they killed her she wouldn’t be missed. I needed to find a way to send the opposite message, and that’s when I came up with the idea for the run.

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