Support the Protection of indiginous people in DRC

Let us integrate Indigenous people in our development plans

Our activities in Tanganyika and Equateur Provinces are becoming the role model of what we should do in order to end exclusion against Twaa (indigenous people) who are highly discriminated.

First of all they are now included in our staff members at the Provincial levels, so that they can shape our programs in order to take into account the Twaa Community.

Secondly all our interventions are done in the Twaa Communities and then ask other communities especially Bantu to access services in the Twaa Communities. This is unique, most of actors were putting services in Bantu Communities and then ask Twaa to go and access these services, and we are also advocating others to change the approaches.

Thirdly we are now involving them in development activities such as farming and agriculture among others. We are trying to organize them into groups which can help to exercise leadership roles and play various at the community levels.

Twaa people in DRCongo

Even if we do not have clear statistics of the population in the Democratic Republic of Congo, certain statistics do estimate Twaa at 20% of the entire DRCongo population. They are known as the indigenous communities. They lived on hunting and collecting fruits from the trees in the forests.

However as Bantu and other Ethnic groups kept on growing, they exploited the forest and created a serious competitions to access and control the forests which later became mostly exploited by the Bantu at the expenses of Twaa. As consequences Twaa lost their livelihood activities as Forests were highly attacked and destroyed by other ethnic groups.

Colonial strategies focused on Bantu and other ethnic groups and totally left a side Twaa Communities who only stayed in their forests up to now.

On top of that the Climate Change also caused a big problem to the Twaa Communities which created hit that caused forests to dry up, and also floods which destroyed places they used to stay, this also killed so many wide animals and destroyed completely many species which were important for their survival.

Now, they cannot any more live on the forests, but at the same time they have not accessed education opportunities, they did not acquire skills. In order to survive they attacked other ethnic groups and looted their things such crops in their plantation and animals. This is one among the causes of violence in Tanganyika Province between Twaa and Bantu. The second cause is the relationship between people, Twaa women find it easier to get married to Bantu men because of economic opportunities but Twaa men have problems to marry Bantu women. This is another main cause of the conflict.

Beyond the services in order to skill Twaa communities and capacitate them on livelihood activities, we are also involved in various research and advocacy activities.

Pygmies in the Democratic Republic of Congo continue to face problems

Responses

We have organized three information sessions among Pygmies in Kalemie about the cut of relief aid because the United States of America cut the aid, we encouraged Pygmies to look for alternatives in order to survive and request them to learn livelihood activities.

They have a big challenge because they have nothing much to offer to the community but they depend on the good will of other social groups to integrate them and offer them work. As per now our priority is to engage them in agricultural activities so that they easily produce food for themselves and for the communities. Once we get the funds, they can produce food like greens in three months and that can be also consumed in Kalemie City, they can also produce fruits and others types of food. But we do not have the funds as per now.

In various Internally Displaced Camps they remain the most vulnerable, because they have no life skill, they were not involved in livelihood activities and they have never trained in such activities.

Pygmies who lived on hunting in the forests over the years, now because of the war and various development activities which affected their forest, thousands found themselves in IDP Camps where they have been surviving on relief aid. In these camps various negative stereotypes and myths were developed against Pygmies which also distanced other actors from supporting them and helping to embrace development. In various camps Pygmies and clearly left out and no efforts are deployed to bring them on board.

The Tanganyika Province in DRC is one among the province which have a large number of Pygmies population in DRC, and in this province at least 70% of the Pygmies population are living in IDP Camps and this has created armed conflicts between them and the other communities.

While we do not have funds to engage them in Income Generating Activities here in Kalemie and around Kalemie, we have managed to engage them in various meetings for perception change and sharing them information about the shortage of humanitarian relief aid currently.