Aid the Congo DRC is a UK based charity organisation that campaigns to raise funds to build and equip health centres with health facilities, for isolated villages in Kabongo DRC, as well as provide them with health and hygiene education.
The country we work in:
Democratic Republic of Congo
The area we work in:
Kabongo territory, Katanga province
Kabongo Territory (pink) in Katanga province (black)
The DRC, Africa’s 2nd largest country, is one of the world’s top contributors to deaths by preventable diseases, child and pregnant women deaths. The country has suffered many years of war and conflict, which has devastated it in more ways than one, but has impacted significantly the state of the country’s education and health care sector.
Through all this, the people who have been badly affected the most are those in rural isolated communities, in villages like those in Kabongo territory. These communities have been particularly hit in terms of access to healthcare and education. Villagers in these communities, unlike their counter-parts in towns and cities, have higher chances of catching and dying from preventable diseases and mild health complications; purely because of lack of basic healthcare.
One of the examination beds at the Mwanya village Health centre in Kabongo
Lack of health care coupled with the absence of health education has perpetuated ignorance and has increased reliance on harmful superstitions in villages. It has also further exposed the impoverished communities to health crises, as men, women and children continue living life unaware of hygiene and sanitation.
Kabongo territory, located in the province of Katanga, is a region almost 2 times the size of Northern Ireland. Kabongo has only 1 hospital working in close-to-adequate order - with 4 doctors, 24 nurses and 120 beds. Hundreds of village communities are completely unable to access the hospital, due to distance , lack of means to afford treatment, as well as overcrowding of patients. This situation has resulted in run down ad hoc health centres being set up in a small number of villages, operating largely in unsafe conditions; namely in unclean and insufficiently lit spaces, with no proper equipment or sanitation. These makeshift centres are often run by volunteer nurses trained at a basic level.
Here at Aid The Congo DRC, we aim to tackle the poverty experienced in these isolated communities by:
1. Raising funds to build and facilitate health centres in villages of Kabongo with equipment, medication and vaccinations
2. Holding talks, seminars and assemblies to educate village communities on sanitation and hygiene
3. Producing posters and leaflets to be distributed and displayed throughout villages, to raise awareness of hygiene and sanitation
With your help, we believe we can do it. With your help, we can change lives.