Disability Rights Congo, Democratic Republic of the Project #35430

Balou: support 200 kids with disability in Congo

by ALEIMAR - Voluntary Organization

Balou: support 200 kids with disability in Congo

Project Report | Feb 20, 2024
A new challenge: 5 academic courses for caregivers

By Francesca Pellegatta | Project Leader

Dear Donors,

With this report we would like to share with all of you a really important update about our project “Balou”. Since the last monitoring trip pf June, our local representative Madame Maguy has shared with Aleimar the increasing need of improving skills and competences of all the caregivers that deals with people with disabilities.

Unfortunately, in the region of the Haut-Katanga, where our project takes place (in the city of Lubumbashi) a remarkable number pf people suffer from a congenital or acquired disability due to different causes: the rise in road accidents, the increase of accidents in mining activities, malformative syndromes, physical anomalies due to physically demanding jobs, limited access to medical care in emergency cases and the lack of rehabilitation facilities.

Our local representative witnesses an increasing number of people with disability in the city of Lubumbashi that require a specific support. In the Balou Center children and young people with disabilities can receive proper cares, but also the local staff report the need of a more specific training in order to provide a more tailored help. For this reason, the director of Balou Center has established a partnership with the University of Lubumbashi, in particular with the Superior Institute of Medical Techniques (ISTM Zawadi). This partnership aims at creating a special Institute focused on training and providing medical competences to staff specialized in the rehabilitation treatments for people with disabilities.

In five years, the main goal is providing 5 academic courses:

- Mental health and psychiatric care

- Speech therapy

- Kinesiotherapy

- Psychomotricity

- General care

- Obstetrics

Some of the courses will be developed inside Balou Center, near the most vulnerable recipient. We are sure that this new joint path will lead to a positive impact to the life of a great number of people with disability and their caregivers. We hope that you would like to keep supporting our project and our new challenge.

Just thanks to your help all this is possible!

Thank you!

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Oct 10, 2023
Sharing good news!

By Francesca Pellegatta | Junior Project Manager

Dear Donors,

In June our country manager Francesco and our Aleimar’ volunteers Franca, Gianni and Gianluca took part in the periodic monitoring trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo. This has been the opportunity to visit all Aleimar’ projects in the Country in favor of children that live in conditions of vulnerability and in particular to strengthen the relationship with our local partner that manage Balou Center in Lubumbashi.

At present, the center hosts 80 children and teenagers with mental and/or physical disabilities and they are followed in all their needs thanks to the support of the local staff. The Head Mistress M.me Maguy witnesses that the children hosted in Balou Center are just a small number of all the children with disabilities and in need in Lubumbashi: the local partner has created other centers and foster homes that hosts in total 243 minors. This numbers can increase our awareness on the actual need in the field!

The main mission of the project was installing a photovoltaic system in the center and now this dream has become reality. The system is working and all the recipients of the center can benefit from the stable light. However, this is just one of the needs emerged during the last monitoring trip. Our local partner told us about the difficulties faced during the last months especially due to the continues increase of prices (of staple goods like food, transport and health care). That’s why Aleimar would like to keep on collaborating with the local partner and improve the general support to the center allowing all the children to receive medical care, rehabilitation services, daily food and a safe place where they can grow.

We hope that all of you will follow us in our mission in order to support even more children with a mental and/or physical disability in the Democratic Republic of Congo!

Thank you!

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May 31, 2023
Looking forward to the next monitoring trip!

By Francesca Pellegatta | Junior Project Manager

Dear Donors,

The latest Integrated Food Security Phase (IPC - an innovative multi-partner initiative for improving food security and nutrition analysis and decision-making made up of Governments, UN Agencies, NGOs, civil society and other relevant actors) analysis found that between January and June 2023 in the Democratic Republic of Congo 25.8 million people continue to face crisis or emergency levels of food insecurity.

The most determining factors are:

- Conflicts and insecurity – the intensification of armed conflicts continues to cause the massive displacement of the population. 2.3 million displaced people have to leave their livelihood to escape the war that limits their possibility to access to food;

- Prices increase – since July 2022 food prices keep on growing. In particular the price of corn and beans remain superior compared to the seasonal average and the purchasing power of the local population remains low;

- Humanitarian assistance – the prolonged nature of the current crises in the DRC and the emergence of new crises (in Sudan and Ukraine) could exacerbate the already precarious situation of households in need of food assistance;

- Agricultural production - Previous weather anomalies (mainly poor distribution of precipitation and excessive precipitation that cause floods) lead to the decrease of agricultural production. Ongoing conflicts also continue to prevent or reduce people’s access to production basins.

In this general context of the country, Aleimar continues to monitor the state of food safety and overall security of Katanga region, where all our projects are developed. In Lubumbashi our support to Balou center goes on in order to make it autonomous from an energy point of view. The installation of the photovoltaic panels has been completed during these last months and in June our Aleimar technician will take part in the periodic monitoring trip. This will be the opportunity to personally verify if all the connections have been perfectly made and if there will be the necessity to make any technical change.

This center supports a really high number of disable children and teenagers in need. Its activities are fundamental for the promotion of the rights of all these children that otherwise would be on the margins of society. For all these reasons Aleimar would like to keep on supporting the Balou center and the near hospital also after the installation of the photovoltaic system. Your help would make it all possible!

Thank you!

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