We could not post an update from the month of May in Congo without acknowledging the global uprising against racism we are engaged in.
From Amani Matabaro, our North Star and Founding Director of Action Kivu:
Real hope is seen in action, and we’re grateful to share good news: we are celebrating 10 Years of Action this July 11th, Action Kivu’s 10th Anniversary! Please register today for a Zoom celebration with a Q&A between Amani and actor / activist Robin Wright.
As the Coronavirus pandemic continues its spread throughout Congo, it is particularly problematic in eastern Congo where our projects are, due to the lack of infrastructure. Amani reports that testing is almost non-existent, as samples have to travel to Kinshasa, DRC’s capital, 2000 kilometers from Bukavu, South Kivu.
In what feels like an ever-frightening world, the Congo Peace School is a beacon of light and hope, thanks to your partnership and investment. The students continue to learn in small groups, honoring social distancing, wearing masks, and practicing prevention in handwashing before entering the school’s auditorium that houses the computer lab and library, and to eat meals in the cafeteria. For many students, this is the only food they will get as the pandemic has wreaked havoc on the local economy.
You may have read the U.N. report today that “about 1,300 civilians have been killed in separate conflicts involving armed groups and government forces in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) over the past eight months, with the violence forcing more than half a million people from their homes, the United Nations has said.”
This violence has not affected the region around the Congo Peace School which remains peaceful, but it cannot help but affect every person at the level of fear for basic safety and human rights. This, on top of everything else, is why your partnership with the people of eastern Congo means so much, and provides real pathways in peace-based education, provision of food, and a group of leaders trained in nonviolence and trauma-informed community building.
In these students’ stories, we see how the fear of the uncertainty of the pandemic and critical concern around malnutrition and violence lives side by side with hope because of the school’s programs:
“This pandemic is a devil and an enemy of everyone,” Aminata shared. “It has completely changed my everyday life, schedules and everything. Our school no longer opens early in the morning at 7:30. We have reading sessions and computer skills in small groups since we cannot gather in groups of more than 20 people. I am missing my school and community lifestyle so much, I wish the school could be re-opened completely. I don’t want to be selfish, I want the rest of my school mates to also access computer skills, share our meals with everyone like the time before the pandemic.
“My auntie and grandmother, with whom I live because I am an orphan, cannot run their small business as they used to do before the pandemic, their little trade was the only source of income we were relying on to get food and clothing in addition to what we get from the Congo Peace School. Everything has completely changed, no more money for my aunt to do her business of selling cooking oil because when the borders between Rwanda and DRC were closed because of the pandemic, she spent her capital of $50 on our basic needs as she could not continue crossing the closed borders.
“We go to the Congo Peace School for reading, to learn computer skills, and to get a meal. I am badly missing my life before the pandemic. The only new hope I have is because of the education I am getting from the Congo Peace School, I hope my life changes one day." -Aminata
"Life for me during the pandemic is a total nightmare. I never imagined something like this would happen to the world. I am so very afraid when I hear the damages and deaths this pandemic is causing in the world. Our country already had so many other problems and this pandemic comes to paralyze everything. Hunger has become a big issue because of this pandemic. Everything has closed: no church, no school, but I am so lucky to be a student at the Congo Peace School with a unique vision. As you can see, we are learning computer skills in small groups, we have access to books in our school library, we have access to food, which is not the case, I imagine, for other schools in the country.
“Learning computer skills had been a dream which became reality for me and my schoolmates. It means so much and it is something new in my life, I never imagined I would be so lucky to access, to touch a computer in my life but the Congo Peace School makes it a reality for me. We are learning how a computer works, its hard parts and its soft system. Now I know the functions of the keys, I can start a computer, create a file, type a document, and file it. Accessing a computer makes me feel very proud of myself and my school. I will use computer skills as a tool of work and when we have access to internet at school, I will send emails to people." -Samuel
In our work for food security for the students and the community, we have great news to share! Amani reports that “we had an ongoing problem of excess water on part of the Community Farm. Our approach is that every problem has a regenerative, local solution.”
Thus – they planted rice fields! (In the distance of the second photo posted here, you can see the pig sty, that is part of the cycle of regenerative farming through composting at the Community Farm.)
It is impossible to state how meaningful and life-changing your contribution to this movement of peace and equality through education is.
We truly are in this together.