Arlington Hts. mom demonstrates at State Department

Tracy Ronzio's passion to help Congo women and children has the Arlington Heights mother spending a cold, sleepless week demonstrating outside the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C., calling for a more aggressive effort to halt the violence.

For five years Ronzio has worked on the cause, sponsoring an annual run in Chicago to raise funds for people in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo.

Now Ronzio; Lisa Shannon of Portland, Ore., who started Run for Congo Women; and four others are keeping a vigil that started at 6 a.m. Monday and will end at midnight tonight.

A nasty wind has taken the temperature as low as 7 degrees, said Ronzio in a phone interview. While the women's permit does not allow a tent, and donated sleeping bags did not show up until after the first night, they do have technology like cell phones and the Internet.

In fact, their main campaign for support is asking people to post pictures on their Facebook page, Outcry for Congo, and more than 1,000 Facebook members have praised the page. The cause is also outlined at athousandsisters.com/blog.

State Department officials have invited the women in for meetings, and Ronzio said officials seem supportive of the requests. These include pressuring Rwanda to stop funding the militia that is fighting in Congo; international monitoring of mineral exports from Congo so the sales do not fund militias; and professionalizing the Congolese army.

The women believe that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton agrees with their stand and needs a public outcry to push the issue.

“The violence, the gang rapes are continuing to get worse and worse. It's barbaric,” said Ronzio, describing horrendous acts and explaining why this tragedy has affected her more strongly than others in the world.

“This one just stuck with me, perhaps because I'm a mom. I have the same goals for my family that these women have, and no one is telling their story.”

The violence has been going on longer than 10 years with more than 5 million dead, said Ronzio.

“The United States gives money to Congo, and we have every right to have asks behind the money,” she said.

Tracy's husband, Eric, sends out notes about his wife's vigil as well as going to work and coordinating the family and friends who help care for the couple's two children, Bella, 7, and Rocco, 9.

“I want my kids to see that I want to do the right thing,” Tracy Ronzio said. “Whatever it is that they want to do when they get older, do the right thing. Step out of my comfort zone step out of Arlington Heights.”