"Should agriculture be a required school subject?" writer Dan Nosowitz asks in his Modern Farmer piece that highlights Kenya's attempt to add agriculture to its curriculum. At Action Kivu, our Organic Food for All (OFFA) program trains women and girls, denied a formal education, in the skill and art of agriculture. Here five farmers weed the beans they grow on the lush land down in a marsh in Mumosho, critical in the dry season for the water to grow food when vegetables are rare and expensive. "Having access to this land, thanks to Action Kivu support, makes a huge difference," our partner Amani tells us.Invest in the women and girls growing a better future for Congo here!Read more about our Entrepreneurial, Educational, and Community Building Programs:
Action Kivu Fundraiser & Giveaway: Get Creative for Congo
Every morning, parents everywhere wake up with the same questions and hopes for their children: what to feed them, how to get them to school on time, whether they'll be safe out in the world.In Mumosho, Congo, many parents wake up wondering if they'll be able to feed their children, if they can afford to send them to school, and they dream of the day that eastern Congo is a safer place for their family.Because of your donations, Action Kivu is creating pathways for those hopes to become reality. With your investment in Congo, we are able to provide the training and tools for hundreds of mothers to break this cycle of extreme poverty, to send their kids to school, to learn to read and write and put pen to paper and raise their voices for peace and a better future for the kids of Congo.When you donate this week, you'll be entered into Alissa Haight Carlton's Annual Fundraiser & Giveaway! $100 puts you in the running to win the gorgeous quilt pictured above, and pays the monthly salary of one of our Literacy Program teachers in Mumosho, Congo - a critical course that is the entry point for our Sewing Workshop and other vocational training programs. Invest in the girls and women of Congo today - and check out the other giveaway levels and prizes at alissahaightcarlton.com.We are grateful for you being part of our family, and your role in creating the beloved community, taking action to invest in women and children and a brighter, more peaceful world for us all. Read about all we've been up to on our blog.
- A Birthday Video: Action Kivu Field Report
- Children's Day in Congo: How Much Does a Birth Certificate Weigh?
When you donate, please share the fundraiser and Action Kivu's stories with friends and family, telling them why you believe it's world-changing to invest in women and kids!
Microloan Moms: Adherents of Hope Writing the History of Congo
"We write history with our feet and with our presence and our collective voice and vision."~Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark
Walking the dusty dirt roads of eastern Congo to run her small business as a trader of local beer and the maize to make it, Claudine’s feet are on the ground, writing her chapter in the history of the women of Congo. There is great dignity in presence, in showing up daily for her work.Claudine is still amazed at how much her life has changed in such a short amount of time after she received a microloan from the Power in Unity group, a program that began with donations from Action Kivu supporters and has grown into a sustainable economic system of investment, where each member pays forward their loan in small monthly installments, giving back part of their profits to create another loan for a new entrepreneur."The way you see me here, I don't know where to begin telling you about my life," Claudine tells us. "But before I talk about my life, I first want to say thank you very much to Action Kivu / ABBEC. I consider them like my parents because they have done a great thing in my life. It gave sense to my life."Married, and the mother of seven children (three girls and four boys), Claudine had first tried to run a business on her own, borrowing 10 dollars from a friend here, 20 dollars from a neighbor there. But it was never enough; she couldn’t pay back her loans and also feed, clothe, and pay the fees to send her kids to school.“Since I got the loan,” Claudine reports, “five of my children are studying and we eat one meal a day.” One meal a day is not sufficient, “but at least we know that there will be a meal every evening,” Claudine says. “I can also save a little money. I also got a goat from Action Kivu / ABFEC. It helps me with fertilizer for my soil and I have hope that I will gain many other things from it.”Claudine adds her voice and vision to the collective when she meets with the other women in the Power in Unity group twice a month. They voted in a president and a committee of eight women who oversee the meetings and the finances. The women pool their resources and have created a sustainable system in which their profits make it possible to include new members, while also depositing into a social fund to help members who need money for medicine, or marriage, or who are too sick to work, or are grieving the loss of a loved one.The community the women have created has never been seen before in Mumosho, but that is the underlying meaning of hope: it fertilizes and tills the ground for the foundation of a new reality, allowing hope’s adherents to write their new history.
Read more Microloan Mom stories here:
To invest in women like Claudine, donate to Action Kivu here!
Microloan Mom in Congo: Nsimire's Vision for the Future
If you were to meet Nsimire selling her fresh beans at the Peace Market in Mumosho, you might address her as "Mama Nsimire," as the women in Congo are called. The moniker could not be more true for Nsimire, who is the mother of 18 children.Due to extreme poverty, eight of Nsimire's children have died, and she and her husband now care for 10 kids. Before she received a loan through Action Kivu's Power of Unity group, Nsimire was working on a farm, earning around a dollar per day of labor. With her husband unemployed, they were unable to feed or clothe their children, let alone pay for their school fees.After receiving a loan of $50 USD from Action Kivu's Power of Unity group, Nsimire began her business selling fresh beans at the market, and now seven of her 10 children are enrolled in school!Part of the Power of Unity program is to pay forward her loan, to invest in more women entrepreneurs joining the group to start their own small businesses. Beyond that investment, Nsimire envisions sending all of her children to school, and opening a big shop in Mumosho.To invest in women like Nsimire, visit ActionKivu.org. Every dollar makes a difference in changing the lives of these women through literacy classes and vocational training programs, and immediately affects the lives of their children through nourishment, health education, and formal education, helping to break the cycle of poverty. We're grateful for and depend on our generous monthly and one-time donors! Click here to learn more.
A Birthday Video for our Family: Action Kivu Field Report
It's Action Kivu's birthday today, and to celebrate being 6 years old, we want to thank each and every one of you who has partnered with us and invested in the women, children, and communities of Congo!Your generosity continues to make a meaningful impact in the lives of the people in Congo. Action Kivu began partnering with Amani Matabaro and his non-profit ABFEC in 2010. For five years before that, Amani / ABFEC had been operating a Sewing Workshop and Education Assistance Program out of his own pocket. In 2005, there were 7 women in the Sewing Workshop, and 15 children being sent to school. After launching Action Kivu and growing our family of donors, we have now graduated 236 girls and women from the Sewing Workshop, giving them the machines, necessary tools, and financial literacy to start their own small businesses, and are registering new students for the Class of 2017 now! With a grant from Jewish World Watch and your donations, over 400 children are now enrolled in school.With your monthly donations and annual gifts, we've grown from those two programs to a variety of educational, vocational, and community building programs: 245 girls and women are in the Literacy Program, over 100 women and girls are enrolled in the Vocational Training Programs including basket weaving and bread baking. More than 100 families have been given goats and the animal husbandry support to breed them, to give back the kid to the next family awaiting a goat. Goats are a symbol of friendship and deepening connection, and a part of the circle of organic farming in our Shared Farm / Organic Food for All program, in which 180 women and girls are learning to farm, and growing healthy food for their families and to sell at the market.With your support, we send a stipend for a nurse to teach HIV / AIDS awareness courses, family planning, and education to prevent and treat common diseases like malaria.Without you, our Action Kivu family, none of this would be possible. Amani sends this message from Congo to honor the 6th Anniversary of our partnership:"I'd like to thank everyone who has so far supported the work we do here via Action Kivu! That is the way to build a beloved community, to give hope to those whose hope has been stolen by the forces of evil. The support of our work is light in darkness, and communities feel a sense of worth that someone cares, and takes action."Visit our programs through a beautiful video filmed and edited by Hélène Estèves:Thank you! Merci! Asante sana! We are grateful for you being part of our family, playing a part in creating the beloved community, taking action to invest in women and children and a brighter, more peaceful world for us all.Read more about the impact of your giving:
Microloan Mom Faida Cibanvunya's Miracle
For years, Faida and her husband had no work, and no means to feed, clothe, or send their six children to school. “We suffered for many years,” she says. “Some of my children were going to school, but in very bad conditions.” They had no food to eat, no shoes to wear, and often went to class without the necessary books. “I can’t even talk about a school bag [backpack] – I had no money to ever buy one for any of the kids. I could never think about buying clothes. At that time, when one of my children was sick, I could not afford to take them to a doctor. Can you imagine that?” she asks. “Seeing your child suffer, and not being able to do anything about it?”Faida confided that she had been losing hope. Uncertain what she could do, unable to find work to care for her family, she thought about suicide. That day she saw a friend who invited her to go to apply for the Microloan Project with ABFEC (Action Kivu’s partner organization in Congo).“I got the loan,” Faida says with a smile. “It was a miracle that I had never seen in my life. I started my business, selling cassava flour, and I thank God – everything is going well. With this small business, I am now able to pay the school fees for all my children, buy food for them, and I save some money. ABFEC also gave me a goat, which helps provide fertilizer for my soil. I don’t know how I can describe my former life, but I can say that I have seen a great change in my life because of Action Kivu’s support. Thank you so much to the people who made this possible.”Thanks to individual donors giving initial investments through Action Kivu, ABFEC’s Microloan Project is up and running in eastern Congo, sustaining itself as the businesswomen re-invest a portion of their proceeds back into the program, funding more and more women to launch their own small businesses.Your donation enables Action Kivu to continue to fund the Literacy Program and Vocational Trainings that teach the women skills to transform their lives. Consider giving that gift of real hope today!
Children's Day in Congo: How Much Does a Birth Certificate Weigh?
How much does your birth certificate weigh? Likely not a question you've ever asked yourself. You may not know where it is, and if pressed to present it for a new passport, you'd have to go through the hassle of ordering another copy. Such a light piece of paper for such a weighty document: proving who you are, where you were born, what name was given to you. Yet for the children born because of rape in a country where sexual assualt is a common weapon of war and societal control, a birth certificate is heavy with meaning.May 28th, 2016 felt much like any other day for these kids in Congo: waking with the sun, as toddlers around the world are wont to do, despite their mothers' wishes for an extra hour of sleep. Eating breakfast. Melting down in a toddler-sized-tantrum as their developing brains fight to accept that they can't have everything their way.For their mothers, May 28th was a momentous day. It was a day of healing, of helping to transform the horrific memory of rape into a celebration of life. Born without a father on record, their babies didn't have an official record of citizenship in their own country.Six months ago, Amani Matabaro began work to rectify that. The co-founder and Executive Director of ABFEC - Action Congo, Action Kivu's partner in eastern Congo, he is known to the kids in Mumosho as Papa Amani. And known to all of his friends and partners as an activist and feminist who believes that equality for women and the rights of children are the only way for us to move forward to create a more peaceful, just world.A just world isn't born without the work of many, and Amani, at heart a community builder and connector, knew just the organization to coordinate with: SOS-IJM, a civil society nonprofit which works tirelessly for human rights and the legal protection for the people of DRC. Working with a young lawyer named Nancy, ABFEC's field team researched and investigated the mothers' experiences of sexual assault and pregnancy. Together, with legal guidance from Nancy and SOS-IJM, they listened and recorded the stories of the girls and women, and SOS-IJM filed with the Congolese government for birth certificates for each child.The official document holds great weight in legal terms for the future of the children, but for their mothers, that piece of paper represents acceptance. It signifies social standing in a place where most girls and women are shamed and shunned for being victims of rape. It is a picture of the transformation from being subjected to blame to recognition as a member in the community.Join us in celebrating these children today, June 1st, known internationally as The International Day for Protection of Children (#ChildrensDay)! And consider partnering with the kids, their mothers, and the communities in Congo through the life-changing programs Action Kivu supports:
- Education Assistance to send children to school;
- Vocational training programs at the Mumosho Women's Center, including the Sewing Workshop that graduates women with a machine and the tools to run their own businesses;
- Literacy Courses – beginning, intermediate, and advanced;
- Organic Food for All program, teaching sustainable farming and providing healthy, organic food for families;
- My Goat is Your Goat animal husbandry program, providing goats and chickens to families and follow-up education and veterinary care;
- AIDS/HIV education and family planning and health services;
- Power in Unity: providing $100 investments and financial literacy training for women to start their small businesses.
Read more stories on our blog, here.
Bienvenie: From Sewing Student to Successful Entrepreneur
Behind us the Mumosho Sewing Workshop hummed with activity, voices muffled, feet shuffling. Inside, sandal-clad feet rhythmically pressed pedals to power the Singer sewing machines, scissors snipped threads, irons heated with burning coals pressed out the creases in brightly patterned fabric. Outside, Bienvenie sat with perfect posture on the low stool, her gaze direct and unflinching as she told us about her life, describing how her mother did not have enough, enough food, enough money, to support her children after Bienvenie’s father died in a mining accident when she was only two. She shared her story, surrounded by the wide green leaves of banana trees, the red earth of Congo’s valley, a family’s chicken wandering by a thatched home.It was 2012, and Bienvenie was one of the students at the Mumosho Sewing Workshop, where she was in training to make her hopes a reality. Growing up with a love of fashion and fabrics, Bienvenie always dreamed of learning to sew. Her dream appeared impossible, as she watched her mother struggle to make ends meet and feed the family from her harvest of long hours on the farm. Paying for a traditional education or sewing training was unimaginable. “But the people who started this program, I don’t know what I could give them. People who are supporting this program, I don’t know what to tell them, because for me, it has been a dream to have a place where I can learn sewing, and here I am. I am very happy.”Fast-forward four years, and Bienvenie’s dream came true. Because of the people in the U.S. and around the world who support Action Kivu’s work with ABFEC in Mumosho, Bienvenie graduated with a sewing machine in the summer of 2012 and started working, making garments for clients in her community, and sewing alongside other graduates to make the school uniforms for the children Action Kivu sends to school with education assistance.An entrepreneur, Bienvenie now operates her own business, and mentors another young seamstress. “Now people in the community bring me fabrics with value and they are confident, they trust me as now I know my job of seamstress well,” she tells Amani, our founder who started the Sewing Workshop.
“Ideas at first considered outrageous or ridiculous or extreme gradually become what people think they’ve always believed. How the transformation happened is rarely remembered, in part because it’s compromising: … it recalls that power comes from the shadows and the margins, that our hope is in the dark and around the edges, not the limelight of center stage. Our hope and often our power.” ~Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the DarkYour partnership is making these ideas — dreams of equality, visions of women stitching together a better future for Congo — a reality. Consider partnering with the women and communities of Congo today! Learn more here.Read more:
Mother's Day with Mama Ernata, seamstress in Congo: If you were me, wouldn't you be happy?
“[My mother] had handed down respect for the possibilities—and the will to grasp them.” – Alice Walker
This Mother’s Day, we’d like to take you to a corner of Congo, to meet Mama Ernata. You’ll find her at her home sewing workshop, a small wood-beam-walled room that revolves around her Singer sewing machine. This is where she works, mentoring young seamstresses who sew alongside her, taking measurements from clients, sewing garments, managing time and finances in a happy, busy balance with caring for her nine children and husband.
We first introduced you to Ernata in 2012, when Cate and Rebecca (co-founders of Action Kivu, the American arm of Amani Matabaro’s local Congolese organization ABFEC) visited the Sewing Workshop in Mumosho in 2012. Since graduating the Sewing Workshop with our sewing kit, the Singer sewing machine, an iron, fabric, and all the tools needed to start her business, Ernata launched her new life. Amani and Horthense, our Program Director in Congo, caught up with Ernata last week to send us an update on her inspiring journey.“I have seen and heard many things and many people in my life but only two of these have made me feel the pride of being a human being,” Ernata says. “These two things are finally being a mother after I had waited so long, and also being a seamstress. I am the mother of three kids in addition to the seven children my husband got from his first wife who passed away.”Ernata had shared her difficult story with us when we first met her, a story that echoes that of a society where women have very little rights or value, and can be divorced without recourse for not bearing a male heir. “My first marriage, I spent two years in my household,” Ernata told us. “I didn’t have any children, and I suffered a lot from my husband. He kicked me out because I didn’t have any children. After being kicked out by my first husband, I returned home, and spent six months at home. Another man married me. After about 6 to 7 months with my second husband, I could not conceive. He also kicked me out, divorced me.”Then came another man, from a different village, whose wife had died and left him with seven kids. Ernata married for the third time, and after only three months, she conceived. “I was blessed to have one child, a boy, but it was after surgery (a cesarean delivery). After two years and three months, my only child died. I was there, living with my husband, but I was afraid. Six months had passed after my child died, and I hadn’t conceived again. I was afraid, and things had changed again, become negative, with my husband.”Though he already has seven children, he wanted another from Ernata. “And me, too,” she said. “Because if I have a child, I’m stable there.”Though her first-born died, she counts him amongst her children. And shortly after losing him, Ernata became pregnant and gave birth to a second baby boy, who is now one year and seven months old. And soon after, she gave birth to another baby, the little two-month old girl pictured here. “Her name is Ampire, which means ‘God has gifted me.’” Ernata was able to pay for her own cesarean sections and maternity fees for both new babies because of her work as a seamstress.
“The second thing which makes me a proud person of myself is simply to be a seamstress and able to take care of myself, my own children and my husband’s. Without my sewing business, I had no idea how I could be able to pay for the maternity fees. I was able to pay 60 dollars because my third pregnancy was a cesarean delivery like the first and the second ones. My husband has no job and all the income I make from my sewing activity has to be used wisely for our basic needs in the family. The month of April I was able to make only 50 dollars because of the new baby and needed to recover from surgery which is coming along quite well and I am hoping for the best!” Ernata says. (On average, when not recovering from surgery and caring for a newborn, Ernata has been able to earn $120 / month, whereas many unskilled women work for 1 dollar a day on other’s farms.)When asked what the phrase “to mother” means for her, Ernata pauses to reflect on the concept that has become so very real for her in the past four years. “It means happiness, value and respect inside myself, in front of my husband and community. I hope my daughter Ampire will become a professional seamstress.”“I am praying for my sewing business to grow and ensure I continue mentoring others, and that means become able to get a few more sewing machines, that’s the only way I feel I can give back what I have received from ABFEC / Action Kivu. The one year training I went through at ABFEC is rewarding, and means I can pay food for my family, not only clothes for my children but also to repair their clothes whenever needed, it makes me able to pay the maternity costs unlike many other women who give birth and can’t go back home with their babies until someone pays for them. I also pay school fees for my husband’s children.“The biggest challenge is that we have such a large family that depends on what I earn. Without the sewing training I went through at ABFEK, I wouldn’t have become the person I am today. Many of my sewing training classmates are far away and not living in Mumosho, but look, I was able to work, make money, save some and buy a cell phone and I am happy to be in touch with them and they are also happy!”“I have no reason to not be happy and proud,” says Ernata. “I am blessed to have become a mother and a seamstress. May God bless ABFEC / Action Kivu and everyone who contributes in a way or another to transform people’s lives. Mine has been transformed. And if you were me, wouldn’t you be happy?”
We add our gratitude to Ernata's for all our partners in this work. Your generous donations are truly changing Congo and the world, one mama, baby, and family at a time. Learn more about our work here!
Marching and Dancing for Justice: International Women's Day in Mumosho, Congo [Photos]
The women you support through Action Kivu celebrated International Women's Day on Saturday. They smiled as they marched through Mumosho; fists raised, they sang out for justice for all women, holding signs calling for men and women to stand up for equality for a just world. They proudly walked the main road, their feet kicking up red dust, their children underfoot, husbands, brothers, and sons supporting them from all sides.It was a powerful uprising, Amani tells us, where he promised the women and girls that we will not give up. We will continue to lift our voice in unison for equality and human rights! It was the first time the king of the Kabare kingdom, which is made up of several groupings including Mumosho, joined in the celebration, with the queen performing traditional dances with the woman and Amani (see below). The king added his words of encouragement for the women and for ABFEC / Action Kivu's work, stating that he supports the work we do and is behind any program uplifting women and girls.
Many of the girls and women at the Sewing Workshop made their own clothes for the event. "This pair of scissors, this tape measure, this sewing machine simply helps me entirely change my life once and for all," one student told our partner, Amani.
"We are on the journey towards changing our lives!"
Outside the Mumosho Women's Center
A woman steps in to give specific directions to Amani while the queen of Kabare awaits the next dance.
Thank you for partnering with the amazing people of Congo! To set up a monthly donation to support our programs, including the Sewing Workshop, the shared farms, the literacy program, the HIV/AIDS education, and animal husbandry, click here.Learn more about our work:Today I am mending my own life: Sewing Workshop Class of 2016To achieve their dreams: All Together Against HIV/AIDSMeet Grandma Mwayuma and see some of the children at playMeet Amani through the Enough Project’s “I Am Congo” video seriesMeet the goats in our animal husbandry program, Your Goat is My GoatNew People, New Actions, New Congo: Christmas Celebration & New Year Resolutions