Katie Garner, African Road communications consultant and photographer, made a site visit to the Africa Reconciled women’s cooperative in Goma, DRC this February. Written with her characteristic British wit and frank perspective, Katie brings a bit of her recent experience to us.
“Women don’t do minerals.” This was an observation from friend, African Road Changemaker, VICOBA founder and leader from Uganda, David Clemy, as we Whatsapped a comparative analysis of our experiences in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The DRC is a vast country spanning over 900,000 square miles, sitting at the very heart of the African continent. My African Road site visit took me to Goma in the North Kivu province, to the East of the country, just over the border from Rwanda. This was my second visit to Goma, my first in 2012.
This African Road working trip to Goma was for the purposes of asking questions and learning, gaining a greater insight into the country as a whole and the situation of women specifically. I also represented African Road as a friend and partner, coming alongside to build relationship.
My first observations were that I had forgotten about the active volcanoes. On my previous visit I had listened to the names of the volcanoes and made a mental note not to mention them to my Mother. I had since forgotten. Then, approaching the DRC border from Rwanda, Nyiragongo loomed in the skyline, bringing back long repressed volcano memories. I cautiously asked when the last eruption had been. I was met with the cheery response that it had been 2002, and that the experts were predicting there would be another one soon. Naturally. I’ve since discovered that they monitor the activity of the volcano in four-minute intervals, my concern slightly assuaged.
As a result of the volcanic eruptions, most of the roads, walls and houses in Goma are dark grey and pitted with the holes of naturally set lava. The roads are the worst I’ve experienced anywhere. Hourly I wondered whether a particular piece of volcano rock might quickly and dramatically pierce the tyre of the car I was in. Miraculously it did not.
The DRC is a contradiction of a country. A decade ago, the DRC was estimated to possess $24 trillion in mining potential. This is more natural resource wealth than the US and UK annual GDP combined, and at the same time in mid-2017 it was estimated that 7.7 million people in the DRC were in urgent need of food. This poisoned chalice of mineral wealth is pillaged by foreign governments, foreign businesses (for gold and coltan – a vital component of mobile phones), and by local warlords. This, combined with little government infrastructure or oversight has kept money in the hands of the few, and means that this nation has lived with conflict and desperate poverty for generations.
David’s observation about women and minerals was a commentary on power and ambition in the DRC. There is an underlying expectation for many Congolese men that they do have wealth, they simply haven’t found it yet. This is a country where the male stereotype is one of dreaming of gold, living in false hope of the future or the disappointments of the past. The mineral wealth of the country has led to raised expectations of a standard of living, not possible for ordinary people to reach due to the impossibly high unemployment rate (which fluctuates between 30-40%) and even higher underemployment rate. As a result, many men in anticipation of their frustrated, expected wealth are either unemployed waiting for a better day, or they have joined rebel forces to challenge a shell of a government.
As a result, it is usually the women, often mothers, who are supporting themselves and their families. Of this country marked by conflict, the late AA Gill, writing impossibly brilliantly about the DRC for The Times (warning distressing stories + images) surmised that, “This is officially the most dangerous country in the world to be a woman”.
Before I continue I should say, I met good, kind, hardworking men whose aims are noble, quests are peace, and ambitions are for others. One such example is Pascal the founder of Africa Reconciled, who introduced me to these extraordinary women. Whilst Pascal’s focus is on peacemaking, his wife Ruphine (mother to their beautiful new baby, Mercy) leads the work to bring a group of over 60 women together for encouragement and a better way forward.
Though these women have had little education, they are together doing their best to run simple income producing activities to feed their children. Whilst the women are currently running some small businesses, the greatest need is that of hopeful mindset change. This is so often the case for groups in extreme poverty, as highlighted by David Clemy, founder of VICOBA training. Last year David Clemy completed a VICOBA assessment of the women’s group and they have now been approved for VICOBA training.
Though basic systems for saving are possible to set up with little training, the beauty of VICOBA is that it goes beyond systems. VICOBA moves communities through the pain of loss and the mindset of scarcity, into an awareness of the resources around them and the opportunities provided by collaboration. The opportunity to bring training for deep change has never been more vital. I commend to you these women of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Fierce, proud, wonderful, challenged and challenging, and determined to keep themselves and their families alive.
Keep an eye out for an upcoming African Road crowd funding campaign to send David Clemy and his team to Goma to provide VICOBA training to the Africa Reconciled women of the DRC.
If you think that educating women matters, if you think peace is important, if you prioritize a can-do attitude, you can help African Road to provide long term, real change to a country longing for hopeful ways forward.
To understand more about the history of the DRC, read here