Emergency Action for Congo

Action d’urgence pour le Congo

Contributors: Alyssa Newman , Amani Matabaro Tom, Jocelyn Kelly , Rebecca Snavely Christy Dehus Jeff Hallstead

Due to the ongoing and escalating war fueled by the fight over the resources we need to transition to a green(er) world, millions of Congolese have fled violent attacks on their homes and are living in dire conditions.

The estimated number of internally displaced people (IDPs) in the DRC stands at 6.9 million. They have little or no access to food, water, and basic sanitary needs.?

ACTION KIVU INC and Harvard fellow Amani Matabaro Tom have organized a campaign to bring awareness and help Congolese leaders provide emergency intervention and bring dignity kits, food, and water to at least 1000 households (6+ people per household) that are in IDP camps. The dignity kits are specifically for women and young girls in the IDP camps.?

Congolese peace leaders Passy Mubalamba and Amani (see bios below) are the leads for this humanitarian peace effort. Passy will be delivering the kits herself with a team on the ground.?Amani and Passy developed a budget for the emergency intervention below.

Passy is featured in this story by the VOA.

In addition to providing emergency support, and promoting long-term peace, we want to raise awareness about what’s happening in the Democratic Republic of Congo. I will share more content in the coming weeks about how this crisis is connected to human rights and global supply chains.

As individuals, we can support those working on the ground, and as leaders, we can reinforce responsible sourcing in our company supply chains.

Our goal is to raise at least $100,000 in the next months and use this action to raise awareness about the rising tensions and conflict in the region. Funding will be delivered and allocated incrementally in $10-25k blocks as guided by Amani and Passy, and we’ll get reports back from the team on how the funds are used.

For any donation to Action Kivu for this campaign, 70% of the funds raised will go to emergency intervention, and 30% will go to support the long-term peace goals of the Congo Peace School.

I'm donating $1000 today, and I ask that you join me in support of this important peace movement.

Donate here: www.actionkivu.org (add a comment in the note field: IDP)

So, if you donate $100, $70 will go to emergency aid via Passy and $30 will go to support the Congo Peace School. We're encouraging other organizations to join us to take a similar model to support short-term humanitarian aid and longer-term sustainable interventions of Congolese-led organizations.

IDP camps are temporary shelters set up to provide haven and basic necessities to people who have been forced to flee their homes but haven't crossed an international border. These people are called internally displaced persons (IDPs).

The ongoing armed violence between M23 rebel group and the FARDC (armed forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo) directly led to forced massive displacement of populations. The vast majority of these IDPs include populations from Masisi, Mwesso , Kitchanga, and the villages surrounding the city of Sake where there is ongoing fighting that has forced people to flee their homes to and near Goma where they are living in dehumanizing conditions inside the IDP camps. Humanitarian assistance to these populations is taking very long to come but in the meantime, children are dying of starvation. Gender-based violence including rape sexual abuse and exploitation cases is increasing daily.? Identification of security and protection-related issues among IPDs in Goma was part of the need assessment we conducted. These photos show what the current situation looks like in the IPD Camps.

To save lives urgent actions need to be taken. We also can support these leaders in their peace efforts long term.

Total Target Campaign Budget: $100k.

We will immediately allocate any funds donated 70/30 to the two organizations. The impact and proposed allocation are below.

Proposed Emergency Intervention Aid ($70k)

?Action Kivu Congo Peace School Impact ($30k)

Campaign Lead Bios

Amani Matabaro Tom is the Founding Director of Action Kivu and the co-founder and Executive Director of ABFEC-Action Congo (Action for the Welfare of Women and Children in Congo), a Congolese grassroots organization for which Action Kivu, a U.S. based nonprofit organization, raises awareness and funds to provide the resources for ABFEC’s community-based initiatives that foster equality for conflict-affected women and children in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Amani works every day to advance human rights, good governance, and justice in his home country and his work has put him at high risk daily. Amani’s several years’ experience working with national and international humanitarian organizations and the UN has exposed him to the misery that successive and ongoing wars have created in his home country. Amani strongly believes in the power of education, and this is why he founded the Congo Peace School Program, which aims at providing war-affected children with a quality education based on peace and active nonviolence to ensure the children stay in school and out of local militias and mines, and prepare for transformational leadership in the DRC. The Peace School program was co-founded with the major financial partner the Dillon Henry Foundation and is supported by Action Kivu and its many partners.

Amani, married and the father of 6, has been working tirelessly to address the human and civil rights issues confronted daily within the Eastern Congo war torn region. Amani is an educator who graduated from the Bukavu Higher Institute of Education in English and African Culture, and has worked with several humanitarian and human rights organizations on the ground in the African Great Lakes region. These include TAG & Democracy International Countering Trafficking in Persons Project, the National Opinion Research Centre at the University of Chicago, Jewish World Watch, the International Rescue Committee, Johns Hopkins, the Enough Project Center for American Progress, and the UN Multinational Peacekeeping Forces in the Congo. Amani is currently a fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government with an affiliation to the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy and Harvard Humanitarian Initiative? (HHI). He comes with a diversified range of academic training from the University of Rhode Island Centre for Peace and Nonviolence in Kingian Nonviolence, Johns Hopkins University’s focus on Health Emergencies in Large Populations, and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative focusing on National NGO Program on Humanitarian Leadership. Amani is a co-author of several articles, including The Bare Minimum: Due Diligence Reporting Shouldn’t Be a Question and Conflict, Displacement and Overlapping Vulnerabilities: Understanding Risk Factors for Gender-Based Violence among Displaced Women in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

Learn more about Amani's work at https://www.actionkivu.org/

Passy Mubalama is the Founder and Executive Director of the Action and Development Initiative for the Protection of Women and Children (AIDPROFEN), a nonprofit organization based in the Democratic Republic of Congo. AIDPROFEN’s founding was inspired by her personal experiences reporting on human rights violations from IDP camps in Goma, and now works to promote women’s rights in the eastern DRC.?

In addition, she also founded the Education Center on Democracy and Human Rights in the DRC in 2016, which arranges trainings and meetings between the community and local political leaders to progress women’s political engagement. In this interview, Passy reflects on how she started her work in pro-democracy activism and how that led to the founding of AIDPROFEN. She also discusses education as a tool to promote women’s and children’s development in the DRC, as well as the importance of women’s political involvement.

www.actionkivu.org (add a comment in the note field: IDP)