Living on the Edge: First Impressions of Aru, Democratic Republic of Congo.

This blog post was written by our CEO, Rachel Lindley upon her return from visiting our new programme starting in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Crossing the land border from Uganda into DRC was underwhelming. The border was a piece of rope held by two young men, and as we waited for the inevitable paperwork, the landscape was surprisingly dull. There was none of the usual cross-border trade, bustle and bargaining. Not a single overladen truck, motorbike or even bicycle, no kiosk selling mobile phone top-ups, Coke and sun-bleached biscuits, nothing.

Passports eventually stamped, we drove off into DRC. The contrast with the Ugandan town we'd just left behind was stark. Behind us, a thriving metropolis, with tarmac roads, men, women and children heading to work and school with all the hustle and bustle of every day life in a busy town. Just a mile away in DRC, life could not be more different. I noticed the silence first. No dust - no traffic apart from bicycles. The tarmac main road from the border was built by one of the gold mining firms, but otherwise the roads are all unmade. There is no electricity except from generators or solar panels, no advertising, no mobile money or airtime kiosks and very few roadside businesses, even the most informal.

People in Aru live on the edge in more ways than one. They are on the edge of DRC, just a few miles from Uganda, and many have fled there when conflict and violence have erupted. Decades of civil war in the region mean communities have experienced hideous atrocities as well as famine and sickness that come from fleeing your land and home. As we write, thousands have fled their homes just 100 miles south of Aru, to escape violent machete attacks, raping and looting. Thousands more risk starvation.

I received a warm welcome in a village in Aru, DRC

Thankfully, Aru itself is currently peaceful, and the communities we met could not have been more welcoming - nor more desperate for our programme to begin. Most NGOs are working in the conflict zones, where the need for disaster relief is urgent. But in Aru, people urgently need a way to boost the local economy, increase the number of small businesses, build some savings in case of emergencies and support their children to go to school.

Our programme will integrate literacy training because so many adults missed out on schooling during the years of civil war, and trauma counselling to help adults and children come to terms with the attrocities they have seen and experienced. Despite the horrors in the past, Aru is a place of hope - living on the edge of opportunity with powerful resources of community solidarity, fertile land and a belief in creating a better future for their children. We're privileged to be part of this journey with them.

A Year On From the 2016 Big Give Christmas Appeal: Karamoja

I’m writing this whilst sheltering from torrential rain with two of the new team spearheading our programme in Karamoja - Revd Joseph and Sam. We’re in a church which is almost completely bare; earth walls with holes in for windows, dirt floor, some benches and one table. We’ve also just been joined by two goats who have wisely taken shelter too; the rain is really hammering down onto the tin roof!

We’re in Amudat district, Karamoja region, eastern Uganda, visiting the newest Five Talents programme which was launched earlier this year thanks to your generosity in the 2016 Big Give.

The communities you’re helping here really are isolated. Today I’m visiting a new Trust Group in a village 54 km from Amudat town, along an un-tarmacked road. We didn’t pass a single 4-wheel vehicle on the way here – just some motorbikes, women carrying firewood and water on their heads, herds of goats and cows, a hunter with a bow and arrow, and even some camels shepherded by a small child, kept for their milk.

Aside from the challenges of isolation, life is tough here, especially for women and girls; child marriage, FGM and polygamy are still common. In Pokot culture (the main ethnic group in this part of Karamoja) women are not encouraged to speak in mixed groups. In this Trust Group meeting, the men sit on benches or on the small stools they carry whilst the women sit at the back or on the floor.

Yet despite this, the majority of the Group members are women and as the female Treasurer introduces herself it’s clear that things are already beginning to change for the better. The members of this Trust Group have begun to start their own small businesses – one grandma buys a bit of maize, gets it ground in a mill and then sells it by the mugful from a washing up basin by the roadside. Another sells rice similarly in mugs from a bucket, and another has a tiny kiosk-shop.

These businesses are essential for these families. The grandma tells me the small profits she makes help to cover school fees for some of her grandchildren. But she can only afford to buy stock in the harvest season, when she has some money. During the rest of the year when there is no money to spare, the whole family struggles to afford even enough food to put on the table.

The only banks here are in Moroto town and the public transport fare from Amudat costs around 12 days of day-labourer wages. Clearly, access to any formal financial services is out of the question for these rural communities living on the poverty line.

I’ve only been here in Karamoja for 2 days but already I can see why this Five Talents programme will make such a difference. Our programme will mean members can buy stock and earn a little money all year round. Most keep no business records either, so our training will help them to know which stock is most profitable, and make sure no-one is conning them (this is one of the challenges they identified - sadly it happens all over the world). They will be able to start planning for their futures with the knowledge and resources needed to make their aspirations a reality.

I’m looking at the small children napping on the earth floor of the church in their threadbare clothes, whilst their mothers listen to Sam encouraging them to save little by little, week by week. Most of these young mothers never went to secondary school. It’s incredible to think that some of their children could even go to university from this remote village in Karamoja, now that their mothers have voted to start saving today.  

This is exactly what we should be doing and where we should be doing it. Thank you for making it possible.

This post was written by our Programmes Manager Rachel Lindley whilst on a programme visit.