SOS Children in Democratic Republic of Congo
The fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) has received little attention from the world's media, yet it is one of the bloodiest conflicts the world has known since the Second World War. In less than five years, an estimated 3.3 million people are thought to have been killed, the vast majority of them civilians.
Many have been killed in fighting, but a far greater number have died of disease and starvation. With homes, hospitals and schools destroyed, families and communities have found themselves without food, water, shelter or other basic services. Children are by far the most vulnerable. Hundreds of thousands of them have died due to malnutrition and other preventable diseases.
The charity began working in the former Zaire in 1989 with the opening of the SOS Children's community in Bukavu on the shores of Lake Kivu in the east of the country. The charity's village has fifteen family houses which are home to 150 children and a youth facility of five houses for over 50 young people. Vitally needed educational and medical facilities for the local community are provided by the well established SOS nursery and primary school and medical centre which treats over 9000 patients a year.
In 1994, Bukavu provided a refuge for children who had to be evacuated from the SOS Children's Gikongoro community in neighbouring Rwanda because of the civil war.
Following unrest in the South Kivu region in 1998 an emergency relief programme was set up in Uvira to support children who had been abandoned. Although many were reunited with their own families it was decided to make the temporary village into a permanent SOS Children's Village to provide family homes for 150 children whose parents had been killed in the fighting. In addition there is a nursery and primary school and a medical centre all of which support the local community. SOS Children ran another emergency relief programme in 2002 following the volcanic eruption in Gomo which left thousands homeless.
See also Aids Orphan Projects in the Congo, Africa.
Local Contacts
See latest report from congo SOS Children in Democratic Republic of Congo
Villages d'Enfants SOS de République Démocratique du Congo, Quartier Karhale a Kadutu, BP 1988, Bukavu, Congo
Tel (cell): +871/76 24 86 11 31
email: vesosrdc@hotmail.com
marthekangene@yahoo.fr
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