Health and Safety
There is no health insurance in Congo, and most of the poor do not seek medical treatment until they are extremely ill because hospitals and medicines are so expensive. Malnutrition is common because diets lack protein, and with climate change, complicated by unrest and conflict in many places, food production is uncertain. Life is precarious, and violence or accidents are frequent. The grief of death is often overshadowed by the challenges of burying a relative decently, which is an essential act of family piety and honor.
Context
Maman Monique tells her joy
FEBA
Counseling and Refuge
Violence takes many forms. Whether they are survivors of rape or forced prostitution or domestic abuse or criminal neglect or other trauma, girls and women of all ages find regular counseling and support at FEBA's Women's Center. Usually there are at least ten persons a week who come needing counsel, consolation and spiritual assistance, and sometimes physical refuge.
Maman Monique and her older colleagues have long experience with the tragic and harsh realities of life. One or often several leaders make the time to sit and listen, sympathize and pray, for as long as is needed. Some women and girls need a safe place; they may stay with President Monique or other members of FEBA or in the Women's Center.
Medical Care
Some women have contracted HIV/AIDS from unfaithful spouses or from time spent in forced prostitution. The staff encourages testing, provides funding for medical treatments and follow-up appointments, and assists with the regular nourishing meals which are necessary for HIV/AIDS medication to be effective. They also work to educate the women and wider community about the disease.
Many other illnesses are common, especially those owed to malnutrition. FEBA provides assistance with prescriptions and medical treatment to the extent of its resources.
Food Insecurity
Malnutrition and semi-constant food insecurity are common in the socio-economic conditions of FEBA members. FEBA regularly supplies food to elderly widows who have no other recourse. During the six-month COVID lock-down FEBA also fed 200 families. At the monthly FEBA meetings the leadership works to feed those present or provide them with a small amount of money to buy food for their families. When possible it also distributes health supplements such as calcium and vitamins, donated by American friends.
Disaster Relief
The poorest people live in flood-prone areas of Kinshasa; each year the rains and rising Congo River are worse. Sometimes people are drowned. More often, all their few possessions are ruined, the margin of safety disappears as many are left without clothing, food, shelter, and often become ill. FEBA works to help with food and medicine, and sometimes rent for temporary housing if its resources allow.
Refugee Assistance
Besides the problems at hand in Kinshasa, FEBA also has reached out to assist victims of war and disaster in other parts of the country. Maman Monique has friends all over Congo through her work with the National Federation of Protestant Women.
FEBA has responded to appeals for assistance in the Kasai during fighting in 2016-17 in which many were killed and fled their burned villages (above). I has repeatedly sent assistance for the needs of children orphaned in the Kivu conflicts and refugees in camps around Goma in 2023-24 (below). When possible food or clothing is shipped; otherwise money is sent.
HOW YOU CAN HELP
$25 a quarterly check up for a person living with AIDS
​
$50 food for a family for a week
​
$75 medical treatment for 3 children sick with malaria
​
$100 hospitalization for a 2 days for a rape victim
​
$200 food for 25 CCS children for a week
​
$300 transportation for 100 women to attend FEBA's monthly meeting
Food,
Shelter, Clothing, Counsel,
Medicine
=Hope
~1,200 women of FEBA and their families = ~4,800
​
~100 women of CENEDI in villages near Uvira and their families = ~400
~130 students at CCS and their host families = ~520
​
~300 children in Goma orphanage
​
~300 refugees (of 7 million)
CENEDI
Counseling and Refuge
Eastern Congo has been an undeclared war zone for nearly thirty years, and the numbers of women and girls – as young as eight! – who have been raped in recent years in these small villages around Uvira is heartbreaking – nearly one hundred! They used to go to the forests to cut out fields in the unclaimed areas, which are also home to militias. CENEDI and its partners responded by offering immediate counseling and medical assistance, and long-term means to avoid having to go into the forests by buying a farm close to home.
Medical Care
Victims of rape need on-going medical care. Daily life and childbirth are dangerous. Especially after floods, epidemics like cholera ravage the community, leaving orphans and weakened health for all. Occasionally people die suddenly, like the woman who survived cholera and collapsed when she and others were beginning the harvest, and this is traumatic for the community because no visible cause is explained as ill-will or sorcery.
Food Insecurity
GOMA: Food insecurity is a serious problem for the CENEDI partners in Goma, where most food must be brought from outside the city. American friends have helped by buying a garden where the families who host the orphans can grow some staples. Partners also provide rice and beans for the children's households whenever possible.
UVIRA: Food insecurity was a serious problem for many women and their families in villages near Uvira when the only fields they could afford were the ones they carved out of the forest. CENEDI's American partners enabled the women to buy land within sight of their homes and now they farm this cooperatively to feed their families. Flooding can make it very difficult to farm, however, and there is still food insecurity when disaster strikes
Disaster Relief
UVIRA: In the villages near Uvira torrential rains washed away the homes of many families in Dec. 2021-Jan.2022. CENEDI's American partners are working together with the villagers to build new houses with metal roofs. The villagers supply the labor and local materials: women bring stones for the foundations, men and women make sundried bricks for walls, partners supply things that need to be bought: cement, metal roofing, windows and doors.
