Refugee Charcoal Project in Goma - North Kivu, DRC

Report on our Refugee Charcoal Production in Goma the Democratic Republic of Congo. Slow progress of the project due to funding problems  

The refugee charcoal production is one among the activities we put in place in order restore the image of refugees, empower refugees to gain some money and make refugees part of the solutions on issues related to the protection of environment and climate change. Here refugees are accused by the host communities of so many things including the degradation of the environment and cutting of trees, we would like to change this and make refugees be praised and recognized as part of the solutions in the area.

The aim

This project aims at the environment protection by reducing the cutting of trees for cooking food at 78% in Goma and around Goma, it reduces home expenses on charcoal for cooking at 70% and therefore promotes home economy, it gives employment to a whole chain of people, and helps people to explore other alternatives for cooking.

How we do it

We just buy the remaining of the charcoal in most cases the wastage from the charcoal, we make them a powder or soft, we mixt in soil and other few things and then we produce the charcoal which people can easily use. The advantage of this is that the remaining of the charcoal is everywhere because threes have been cut over the years in order to make charcoal generally for cooking, so with this project we propose that we stop the cutting of trees and only use the remaining of trees that were cut and the remaining of the charcoal that have been used over the years, we recycle all these and then produce new charcoal.

Benefits

Currently a woman who was using 2,500 CF to buy charcoal in order to cook food at home is now using only 600 CF per day in order to cook food. It is giving employment opportunities to 13 people who in most cases did not have something to do, and four people currently involved in the selling. On top of that is imparting in people a life skill for themselves.

Funding

For the last three (3) months this project has not yet received funding most of the money invested in comes from our own contributions, last month we invested in 140$ in order to buy what is urgent. However the project needs funding in order to produce enough quality of charcoal and make a visible impact on ground.

People involved

A total number of 13 people are involved among them 10 refugees and three (3) Congolese from refugee host communities. They make the charcoal once per week and it total currently they are producing more than 300 pieces per day and each piece is sold at 100CF,

Demand from the market

Currently our charcoal is highly demanded by the local communities because as we have said it is much economic, on top of that Goma is surrounded by Internally Displaced Persons IDPs who also have problems to cook their food, actually efforts for IDPs to look for firewood is the leading main cause of rape of women and other forms of violence against women, so this charcoal could also focus on the protection of IDP women.

Future plan

We need to hire a big space where we can make the charcoal and dry it from,

We need funds in order to produce 1,000 pieces of Charcoal per day and at least three days a week,

We need more Forms which make the charcoal,

We need to buy the necessary materials,

We need allowances for those making it,

We need Tents, hire stores and deploy people in various places to sell the charcoal,

We need to train more other people how to make this charcoal and urgently start the charcoal production in IDP Camps around Goma,

We are calling upon your generous contribution and support, what is important is that once this project is fully funded it will continue generating money by itself over the years and therefore protect our environment,

Thanks

JP Mugaruka