Masika

No, she isn’t the first person you will find when you google the name Masika (at least today).  She ain’t a photographer’s model.

She is more in the Mother Teresa mold:  A Model of Protection.

He/She holds the whole world in his/her hands.

Someone who stands up for victims of violence — including herself, and gives safe sanctuary.

“Since I’ve been doing this work I’ve been raped three times. I’ve been beaten, tortured and left to die.”

“I receive women from villages who’ve been raped. I counsel them and escort them to hospital for treatment, as well as looking after orphans whose mothers died during the war or because of rape, and children born from rape.”

She plants the seeds of hope.  Concrete hope — growing and standing for the future.

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Masika

The east of the Democratic Republic of Congo has been engulfed in a brutal war since 1996. This is a war against women, where the most unimaginable violence is being perpetrated against women of all ages.  There are now UN Forces in the area for years, but the situation does not appear to have diminished.  The East Congo is rich in mineral wealth but next to Rwanda, which had its own ethnic violence for years.  The Congo and Africa in general has been a political basket case for centuries.

Masika Katsuva, a Protector Guardian, is a survivor of this unimaginable violence and violation, but despite facing ongoing danger, she is tirelessly working to help others. She has set up a centre where other survivors can come for sanctuary. They have no where else to go, the majority of them have been rejected by their husbands, community, and even their own families.

“Masika’s husband was a wealthy shopkeeper, commuting to Dubai. They lived in a town and had a nice house and a car. Masika was 27 years old when her husband was murdered and she and her two daughters were raped. Their relatives threw them out with nothing. Now she runs a centre for rape victims, helping them to rebuild their lives.”

The most diligent of all the types, Protectors are willing to work long, hard hours quietly doing all the thankless jobs that others manage to avoid. Wanting to be of service to others, Protectors find great satisfaction in assisting the downtrodden, and can deal with disability and neediness in others better than any other type. We are lucky that Protectors make up as much as ten percent the population, because their primary interest is in the safety and security of those they care about – their family, their circle of friends, their students, their patients, their boss, their fellow-workers, or their employees. Protectors have an extraordinary sense of loyalty and responsibility in their makeup, and seem fulfilled in the degree they can shield others from the dirt and dangers of the world. [Please Understand Me II]

Many think that when they’re raped their lives are shattered, but we’d like them to know it’s not the end of the world– Masika

Other Protector Guardians include: Rosa Parks, King George VI, Pushpa Basnet, Mother Teresa