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Partner

OLAME
Date of creation : 1960
Activity : The OLAME Centre is located in a parish of the Diocese Office for Development of the Archdiocese of Bukavu (South Kivu - Democratic Republic of Congo/DRC). Throughout its history, the OLAME Centre, founded in 1959, has been engaged in favour of women and families, by providing support adapted to the local context and time period. In line with its overall mission to “contribute to improving the living conditions of families”, the OLAME Centre targets the following specific goals: - Promote women's overall education and training: literacy, learning of trades and capacity building, in order to empower women to face social, economic and political changes and evolutions, participate actively in the development of their environment, and endorse responsibilities in public governance. - Contribute to increase household income via vocational training in income generating trades, implementation of sustainable farming management methods and techniques, and marketing of local products, for the purpose of growing family income and improving nutritional and living conditions. - Provide psycho-social support and guidance for the social and economic reintegration of women and families suffering from war-related trauma.
City : Bukavu
Country : Congo

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3-year programme to improve the social and economic living conditions of peasant families in the Archdiocese of Bukavu, DRC

NGO Partnership
/ 2009

Field	Income generating activities
Country	Congo (dem. rep.)
City	Région South Kivu
Beneficiaries	Vulnerable peasants organised in 3 Development Groups in 30 villages- Victims of sexual (gender-based) violence - Young single mothers - Women Advocacy Centres
Number of beneficiaries	Between 500 and 1,000

Context

The Democratic Republic of Congo is the third largest country in Africa (2,345,409 km²).
The country gained its independence 50 years ago, but has suffered from repeated rebellions ever since 1964, and lived through a 32 year-long dictatorship, followed by a full decade of ongoing warfare since 1996.
The war in DRC has caused over 5 million fatalities to date (according to IRC statistics) and fostered extensive pilferage of the country's natural and mining resources.
The DRC has recently engaged on the path of peace and national reunification. Since the beginning of the transition period, security has improved mostly everywhere, but remains unstable in North and South Kivu in the eastern part of the country.
The political instability in the eastern DRC has numerous impacts on the social and economic status of the local populations who live in fear. Production has ceased due to insecurity in the villages, thereby intensifying poverty in the region in spite of the country's multiple and diversified resources and assets. A large majority of the local population lives below the poverty threshold.
Progress in women's status in South Kivu also lags far behind and the fate of women in the RDC still remains preoccupying.
Women are excluded from ownership: they own neither land nor money nor even time for themselves. In many cases, women are not entitled to own property and/or to inherit, and cannot access credit facilities without their spouse's authorisation.
Women are also excluded from knowledge, since they rarely have access to schooling. After years of warfare, the educational system is in shambles, and schools are no longer funded by the Congolese state. Parents themselves have to pay for schooling expenses, and prefer to spend the money on boys, thereby creating thousands of illiterate females (80% of boys under 15 can read and write, versus 52% girls at the same age).
Women are excluded from power: they are very rarely involved in public governance or even in the daily management of the household property or affairs.
The war has compounded this disastrous situation with the mental and psychological destruction of women, who have suffered through mutilations, traumas, humiliations and rape. Rape has become a weapon of war, traumatising and humiliating not just women but the entire community, including husbands and children. Massive war rapes have in turn opened the gates to problems of HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).

The Project

The overall purpose of the project is to improve the social and economic living conditions of peasant families.

The programme focuses on 4 specific goals:
- Goal 1: Increase the income of peasant families
- Goal 2: Increase farming income
- Goal 3: Improve health status
- Goal 4: Improve family relationships

Activities :

Activities to achieve the following sub-goals:
Increase the income of peasant families
1.1. Proper management of household income
1.2. Diversified sources of alternative income

Increase the farming income
2.1. Enhanced soil fertility
2.2. Soil protection
2.4. Improved seed quality
2.5. Increased prices of farming products

Improve health status
3.1. Improved nutrition of the peasant families
3.2. Improved housing
3.3. Improved health conditions
3.4. Reduced risk of female diseases
3.5. Community awareness on AID and STDs
3.6. Improved access to health care institutions

Improved family relationships
4.1. Improved gender relations
4.2. Proper consideration given to the fate of raped and traumatised women, girls and boys
4.3. Proper consideration for the situation of single mothers
4.4. Adequate education of children