Support small busness to 250 refugee women in DRC

Expanding services to Internally Displaced Women in Kalemie, Tanganyika Province.  

With the ongoing war in Kivu, the Democratic Republic of Congo, many people both Congolese and refugees moved to Kalemie City in Tanganyika Province where some are living in Camps and others in urban areas.

One among the challenges is that all the war victims have no access to relief aid, because in some cases many international relief aid organizations left because of the United States of America freezing the aid, and the few in ground mainly from the United Nations (UN) have no support to the war victims at all. On the other hand grass root organizations which are part of the communities and which could been doing the great work have no access to funding.

Since this year started, we observed the reduction of funding activities to our projects even through this online campaign, we do not get many people to help. However we have not yet abandoned what we believe, we continue struggling with the war victims in Kalemie especially women involved in Small Generating Activities and other livelihood activities.

While women are involved in various small activities some men are involved in agriculture. However they are facing many challenges which we are solving every day in order to create a conducing environment for them to exist.

Even if we have not yet given them financial support, we have mobilized the business community to work directly with these women, we have also managed to organize these women into two groups in order to become more reliable to the business communities. And as per now all these members of the two groups are able to go to town, get things from the business people, go and sell and then come later and pay the money.

Women victims of war from Kivu struggling alone to survive in Kikongo Camp, Kalemie Tanganyika Province, DRC through small businesses.  

Kikongo Camp, is located in Katanika Village in western Kalemie, it hosts more than 4,000 people who run away from the war in Eastern DRCongo, among them women and children who constitute more than 80% of the entire population, they are living alongside vulnerable host communities extremely poor also.

Tanganyika Province which hosts them depended at 100% on funding from the USAID, which covered all humanitarian responses especially in camps. Now this aid is no longer there and people are left alone.

The absence of the aid, has severe consequences on the victims who are affected by hunger and this has caused cases of malnutrition, exposed them to diseases such as Cholera, Malaria which are the leading and which have claimed the lives of many innocent lives.

For these women resilience is not somethings to teach them, it is automatic and is the only way to struggle and survive, and now they have created small businesses which are not fully supported in order to grow and solve the basic problems they are having.

This woman said “I’m selling this, I am among the lucky women in this camp, at least I’m active and I can afford to earn very little money in terms of profit which helps me to buy food for my children. I have so many problems, like shelter, medicine when we are sick, look even at the clothes I’m putting, and these are the only clothes I have, my children are not going to school, and you may not imagine how much it affects me. But I have nothing to do, this small business cannot give me money to solve all these problems. I walk on food in order to go and buy what I’m selling, because if I use transport I may not get much in terms of profit, so I walk two hours in order to reach the main market in the city and again another two hours in order to come back. I’m wondering how I will get more money to add and expand my business so that I can earn something. Kalemie is highly commercial and here also I can make money in business because we are many people here and also the host community.

I do not do this in order to earn money but also I serve the community and I’m so happy that my presence here is solving some problems in the community and for my fellow refugees. Imagine if I was not doing this, people could have been traveling a long distance just to buy a piece of soap, salt ….”

We also talked to this other women in this camp who shared her own experience “  I sold my phone and then I used the money to set up this small business, and I’m surviving on this, there are so many women who do not have this small income generating activity here in this camp, I’m among the lucky ones. My first priority also is eating, I have so many urgent problems but I decided to focus on eating first. I do this business and the profit helps my children directly but you may not also imagine how many people come to me every day to ask me for something like soap, salt, matchbox, water, some little money, and you may not also imagine how many children from the neighbors come to my home in order to share the little food I have with my children. That is how we are so important in the community. If a person dies here, we are the first ones to be contacted in order to contribute money for the burial, imagine if we were not here. But the capital we have is too little. Please help us to increase our businesses”.