This project assists the Programme d'Integration et Development (PIDP), a Bambuti NGO which documents human rights abuses against Bambuti Pygmies, especially women and children, in the Ituri Forest of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. PIDP desperately needs a heavy-duty vehicle to reach isolated Bambuti communities - to document human rights abuses, and to provide emergency services like health care and food parcels. This forms part of the PIDP Campaign for the Prevention of Genocide
The indigenous Bambuti Pygmies of DRC are subjected to systemic gross human rights abuses and are deeply scarred by memories of civil war. PIDP monitors and documents human rights violations against the Bambuti, as a genocide early-warning system in this volatile area. PIDP collects information and submits it to the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR) for appropriate action. But PIDP's lack of appropriate transport severely limits the effectiveness of this NGO's vital work.
Pygmies in the DRC are a tiny vulnerable minority with few human rights. The PIDP early warning system to genocide is the answer for the Bambuti as it provides them a safety net with the OHCHR on standby. As their physical numbers decline with each natural or man-made calamity, it is imperative that safeguard mechanisms are put in place to ensure the survival of this First People, whose culture encodes specialist ancestral knowledge of biodiversity and the sustainable management of ecosystems.
Over the past few years, PIDP-Kivu members from DRC have developed their capacity to provide online human rights reporting for the genocide early warning system in the Great Lakes. PIDP-Kivu now transmits data 3 times a year to the OHCHR, which has noted a steady decrease in human rights abuse as a result. PIDP-Kivu's documentation and publishing of human rights violations has encouraged unprecedented levels of international support for vulnerable Bambuti communities.
