stories
$11k Raised!
Thanks to all who supported CTA’s “Send your love to the Congo” event in San Francisco. It was a special evening with beautiful images and over 80 old and new friends of CTA. CTA raised over $11,000 for our safe house program in eastern Congo. The money will be spent installing new sewing machines and a rotating credit fund at our newest house in Alimbongo. Stay tuned for news from the field!
A Safe House in the Congo
In the Congo, when a woman is raped, it often means much more than the loss of dignity and the immense fear and pain of the experience. She will also often lose an important connection to her community. The safe houses that we build and support in the Congo help to create a new community for the women who have survived horrific experiences of rape.
A safe house is much more than just a safe place to live. It is a place to gather and share stories and a place to learn new skills, a place where women are offered a chance to begin rebuilding their shattered lives.
The first house we built in Nyamilima works with a very successful microloan/revolving credit program. Some $7,000-8,000 are always in rotation among the women who live there. They are given money in the form of a loan and then taught various skills such as sewing, basket weaving and bread making. The women work together in small groups and earn money using their new skills so that they can repay the initial loan. 98% of the loans are paid back in time and in full. The women are then able to start new projects and continue to build their financial self-sufficiency. These stories of hope create ripple effects as the women will often use the money they earn to improve the lives of their families and their home village. We have been humbled to learn time and again, that when you help a woman, you don’t just help that one woman, because she will turn around and help her whole community…
Tagged Congo, safe house
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Into the Congo
In early 2009, my sights turned to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Stories of the civil war and atrocities against women had long been in my consciousness, yet information seemed harder and harder to come by. At the same time, the George Clooneys and Angelina Jolies of the world had found Darfur, and were raising more attention and money than I could ever hope to.
I realized then that as a photojournalist, my niche, the area I could have most impact, was in areas that were dire, yet underrepresented by the mainstream media. Places that need attention and help.
Thus I traveled to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to document the impact the ongoing civil war was having upon women and children. Sadly, here the statistics were true and I found evidence of some of the most horrific human rights abuses upon the bodies of women. If you do not know much about what is currently happening in the DRC, read this Huffington Post article.
CTA had its new focus, the women and children of the DRC, and a new partner, HEAL Africa. HEAL Africa is a Congolese organization, and has been operating out of Goma, in the North Kivu Province of eastern Congo for over 30 years. Because of their history, staff, knowledge of the region and the complicated nature of this conflict, HEAL Africa is able to operate in remote areas of the Congo too dangerous and in accessible for others.
Through HEAL Africa, CTA has been able to build two safe houses in remote, rural areas of Eastern Congo, serving hundreds of women. The houses not only provide a place for women to go when they have been raped, but also, medical referrals to HEAL’s hospital in Goma, counseling, community support and small business training.
Most women who have been raped are abandoned by their husbands and left to care for their children alone, without any means of employment. In the houses they learn skills (sewing, bread and donut-making, and basket-weaving) and receive loans to start a small business. CTA has now financed three revolving credit funds providing loans to over 300 women, which, when they pay it back is loaned to another. Over 98% of the women pay their loans back in full, on time.
Tagged Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, Goma, HEAL Africa
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