Sienna Miller Blogs From The Congo

13
by Michael dEstries April 27, 2009
Categories: Causes, Internet
Tags: .

sienna miller, congoSienna Miller is traveling the Democratic Republic of Congo and reporting back her experiences for the social action website, Take Part. The actress is seeking to raise awareness of violence in the country. Since 1998, over four million people have died in a conflict that continues to claim 45,000 every month due to violence, starvation, and disease. Here’s a brief highlight for her first blog entry:

“I don’t really know what I expected the Democratic Republic of Congo to be like. Rwanda felt peaceful, but upon crossing the border, the violence which I have read so much about became apparent. The people weren’t hostile, but we were greeted by a truckload of army guys with rocket launchers on their laps. And our head of security, Martin Gilmour, who has almost definitely seen it all. I’m traveling with my best friend Tori, Margeret Aguirre from the International Medical Corps and David Serota our cinematographer. We get a security briefing before leaving the border: don’t go anywhere alone, be smart, body language is important, a smile goes a long way.. .and if we get a gun out in our faces, to remain calm and let Martin do the talking. The country feels so different to Rwanda… bustling markets, smoke, chickens and goats running freely, men and women holding hands, and I smile at the universal language of love.

To read her entire entry, click here.


Categories: Causes, Internet
Tags: .

About Michael dEstries

Michael has been blogging since 2005 on issues such as sustainability, renewable energy, philanthropy, and healthy living. He regularly contributes to a slew of publications, as well as consulting with companies looking to make an impact using the web and social media. He lives in Ithaca, NY with his family on an apple farm.

View all posts by Michael dEstries →

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  • Liz Lemon

    Dear Women of DRC,

    Lock up your husbands.

    And if you want to keep her, no one will complain.

  • sunseeker

    First if you want to raise awareness you do not sent Miss Miller, you sent a responsible person not another Jolie, next she will be changed forever give up sex and go into a nunnery, give me a break this is all about damage control, a little too late for most people I know. Also why take a friend can’t she manage the trauma on her own. She will be on her best behaviour but at the end of the day there will still be four children without a full time father

  • Tabor

    Yeah, that’s how you raise awareness, you fly all over the place for no reason, stay in luxury hotels, and write glurge that no one will read or respect because it comes from the pen of a vapid fame-whore. This was the best they could do?

  • dely minda

    Hi Sien

    So good of you to show another side of you. Congolese people casn’t thank you ennough for your paintaking effort to recognise and feel their pains.

    Its always nice to know in the face of adversity that someone do know or do care and you just did that.
    Many other people do not know or would not even bother to think of something that distant to them but not you.

    you do care and all the congolese are grateful and they say thank you for your help and recognition and they would like you to know that every little help count.

    Keep up the good work, one of these day you will also be helped if not by a congolese but maybe by a mongolian monk.

    Congolese can not thank you enough but thanks a million. You might not be a genius but you are jewel

  • http://RawfoodsRetreat.com erin

    Liz Lemon,

    First of all your post made my DAY! Thank you! Yes she’s a husband stealing @$*#^ for sure!

    Sunseeker, personally I’m not a huge Jolie fan but let me promise you Sienna Miller ain’t no Angelina Jolie. Not even close. She WISHes!

    I agree though with your post completely otherwise ;)

    Erin

  • matty

    I’ve just heard Ms. Miller interviewed on the Ron Reagan show–I don’t really think many of the negative comments are fair. She seems to be a genuinely caring person and sounds very devastead by all the sorrow she is seeing. None of you are any better than she is–all of us have made mistakes—you have to walk a mile in someone’s shoes before you can even begin to get what there life is about. All of us have made mistakes. To fling hateful insults at this person only shows how insecure you all are with yourselves. Maybe you think you are better than her, but you are not.

    And Erin–how is Angelina Joile any better than Sienna Miller? Brad Pitt was married when they began their affair (an emotional affair is just as bad).

  • D

    Sienna you have my total respect to have gone to the Congo and helped these poor unfortunate people..it is good to see you car as for these awful people who write these bad comments to you they are sick or jealous

  • cindy

    Maybe SM should have walked a mile in RG shoes before she decided to have a very public affair with her husband and whined about how there was no sisterhood or how someone was making her life “intolerable”. SM doesn’t grasp the concept of what it truly means to be a victim, hence why she is always playing one under any and all circumstances. If SM truly cared about the plight of women and children, she would have been “raising awareness” INSTEAD of engaging in PDA with BG outside of an airport and groping him outside of a club. How long before SM uses “raising awareness in the Congo” as an open invitation to resume flaunting her affair?

  • David Serota

    I am the cinematographer that was on this trip with Miss Miller. I am going to dispel all rumors and lay to rest any question in regard to her involvement and/or behavior.

    I met up with Miss Miller in Nairobi, Kenya where we boarded a flight together (coach) to Kigali, Rwanda.

    There we met up with the International Medical Corps and took the long and bumpy ride in a 4×4 to the border in Goma. She voluntarily took the center seat with no safety buckle in the front of the truck between the driver and the front passenger seat. For anyone that has traveled in this region of the world, to sit in that seat for 4 hours is grueling, let alone after a 10 hour flight from London.

    We arrived at the border, crossed, and checked in to our hotel.

    I am a documentary filmmaker with $5,000.00 in my bank account. Sienna stayed at the same hotel with the same accommodations as me and this would be the same hotel I stayed at with or without her in tow.

    For anyone who thinks there is luxury hotels anywhere in DR Congo, are as ill equipped to be a journalist as they are a stone thrower.

    We spent long grueling days in Goma, woke up early, worked all day and then at the end of the night, when all I wanted to do was go to sleep, she stayed up and processed it all in her blogs.

    In everything we did, she simply asked one question, “What’s next?”

    Yes, I had heard all of the stories but for you to think because you read something in a tabloid, that it is true, or you are somehow above making mistakes, is laughable at best, and really should be your wake up call. Instead of commenting on the plight of the disenfranchised you are slamming a soul on this planet trying to make a difference with her life.

    Imagine for a moment if you used these energies for good. What kind of change could be happening in your town? With you family? Around the globe?

    Miss Miller absolutely wrote EVERY SINGLE WORD of her blogs and she endured all of the same hardships that traveling in this region of the world requires. Not eating for long periods of time, no electricity, clean water, bed bugs, and mosquitoes.

    In an industry where image is everything, it is a shame that you will never see all the times she sacrificed her own comfort for the team or the story. That doesn’t sell papers. That doesn’t feed the machine.

    Sienna Miller is the real deal. Trust me, I brought with me all the same preconceptions as I was racked with anticipation in my ability to tell this story. I learned that until you meet a person, until you know a person, you CANNOT believe what is written about them. People love to tear people down, for whatever reason.

    Actually, that is the least of my concern.

    What does concern me is doing everything that I can to mobilize people to go out there and make a difference.

    Sienna was doing just that.

    As I said before, she is the real deal.

    Celebrate ones accomplishments, not their mistakes.

    My hat is off to her and all of the change makers doing what they feel is right in the face of the naysayers.

    So easy for you to do the trashing, anonymously. Especially sunseeker. Have the courage to stand behind your words, or don’t say them at all.

  • Belle

    Just read and article in Nylon magazine about Sienna and about this trip and it was very eye-opening. Don’t be so quick to judge!

  • Pingback: Watch: Sienna Miller’s Heart-Wrenching Documentary On Congo Women « ecorazzi.com :: the latest in green gossip

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