Would you...

Would you buy that computer, that cell phone, that electronic game if you knew some of the material used to put it together required raping of women and girls to get it?

In the DRC, war for minerals and money is being waged on the bodies of women and girls - sometimes as young as three. Some are being raped to death. Others are so damaged after an assault they need their entire reproductive tracts reconstructed - and even then it doesn't always work.

The DRC is ground zero for the highest rates of sexual violence on the planet. Just stop and think about that for a second. No matter any other country you think of, the stories you may have heard of rape and sexual violence, there is one place worse than that. And it's been going on for 12 years.

There is such a thing as the greater good. We - companies and individuals - have a responsibility to do as little harm to each other and the planet as possible. And when we know that people - women and girls - are being tortured, violated in unspeakable ways and even killed so that we can have the latest gadget at a lower cost, we have a responsibility, a duty even, to ask those companies to stop; to know where they are getting their parts from and to ensure that nothing they produce required someone being raped.

This is a moral imperative. After all women's rights ARE human rights.

To contact the major companies - click here

To show your support for a Canadian bill requiring corporate accountability for mining activities in the developing world - click here

Today

POEM in OCTOBER*

It was my fortieth year to heaven
Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood
And the mussel pooled and the heron
Priested shore
The morning beckon
With water praying and call of seagull and rook
And the knock of sailing boats on the net webbed wall
Myself to set foot
That second
In the still sleeping town and set forth.

My birthday began with the water-
Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name
Above the farms and the white horses
And I rose
In rainy autumn
And walked abroad in a shower of all my days.
High tide and the heron dived when I took the road
Over the border
And the gates
Of the town closed as the town awoke.

A springful of larks in a rolling
Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling
Blackbirds and the sun of October
Summery
On the hill's shoulder,
Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly
Come in the morning where I wandered and listened
To the rain wringing
Wind blow cold
In the wood faraway under me.

Pale rain over the dwindling harbour
And over the sea wet church the size of a snail
With its horns through mist and the castle
Brown as owls
But all the gardens
Of spring and summer were blooming in the tall tales
Beyond the border and under the lark full cloud
There I could marvel
My birthday
Away but the weather turned around.

It turned away from the blithe country
And down the other air and the blue altered sky
Streamed again a wonder of summer
With apples
Pears and red currants
And I saw in the turning so clearly a child's
Forgotten morning when he walked with his mother
Through the parables of sun light
And the legends of the green chapels

And the twice told fields of infancy
That his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine.
These were the woods the river and sea
Where a boy
In the listening
Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy
To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide.
And the mystery
Sang alive
Still in the water and singingbirds.

And there could I marvel my birthday
Away but the weather turned around. And the true
Joy of the long dead child sang burning
In the sun.
It was my fortieth
Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon
Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.
O may my heart's truth
Still be sung
On this high hill in a year's turning

*with apologies to Dylan Thomas for the slight alterations

Confessions

Some random truths about me:

* I find the window displays at Lululemon to be inspiring - most of the time I don't even notice the clothes because I'm so taken in by the message

* I like that the baristas at the Starbucks I frequent know my name, my drink, where I work, that they throw in an extra shot on occasion and every once in a while put heart on my cup or make them with milk

* I have spent the last 8 weeks working with two of the most astute women I have ever met and two of the least astute men.

* I refuse to apologize for being me. I will take my rightful place in every room I am in

* Sometimes the state of the world leaves me breathless with its cruelty.

* And sometimes it leaves me breathless with its beauty

* I think the sound of skate blades cutting ice is one of the best sounds in the world.

* There is a tree, near my office, that was planted the year South Africa was finally free of apartheid. Every time I walk by it I am reminded that democracy grows like a tree, slowly but with deep roots

* I have discovered friendships - real ones - in places I least expected to.

* There are days where I am sure there simply isn't enough time to do everything I want to do and be everything I want to be.

* I am afraid to fail and some days it is enough to make me not try. I think it's a cowardly act when I do that

* I will re-read favourite books over and over again because every reading is a new one based on where I am in my life when I read it.

* I think almost any man looks sexy in a black turtleneck and jeans

* I have been accused of being indifferent when in fact I'm actually shy and don't like to give away how I'm feeling about things until I'm sure.

* Doing my Masters degree is going to change my life. I am sure of it.

* I cried at my friend's law school graduation this summer - I was so proud of the enormous leap of faith she took and how successful she was and will be

* I believe I am meant for greater things.