Partnership Overview

There are many issues in Beni and Bunia, primarily because it is a volatile area with many stake-holders. There is little hope that the major conflicts will end in the near future but even if they do, there are many traumatized people with little chance of resuming life without some form of assistance to do so. There are two major groups affected:
1) the women, many of whom have lost their men to the fighting and genocide and who now struggle to survive and
2) the children who are growing up in desperate poverty and who become targets of militia groups who recruit them as cadres.
Community Hope Action Ministry (CHAM) sees the urgency and importance of supporting these two groups of people specifically.  

There are many potential components to this partnership including 1) vocational training for carpentry, sewing, motor cycle repair, 2) supplying materials for vulnerable children to go to school, and 3) building and installation of bio water filters. However, the greatest immediate need is in the area of assisting self-help groups of women to start small scale businesses. CHAM has already commenced some of these and many more women have been identified as needing this sort of assistance. 

The partnership will commence by funding two self-help groups for year one with the intention of increasing that to three per year for a number of subsequent years. Right now they have almost 1,000 women identified who could start in groups like this and each group consists of only 20 women.   

History of Partnership

BHW's New Partnership Facilitator has known Jean-Paul since 2015 but initially heard of him in around 2006 when he was with Robert Gitau, a BHW partner in Kenya (KEN03c). Jean-Paul is also well known by a number of other BHW partners, Muthui Kisau and Isaac Basengere (KEN03a), and George and Jaqueline Atido (DRC03).

Since 2015 BHW's New Partnership Facilitator has visited Jean-Paul three times at his home in Uganda and has been communicating with him in the intervening time. After a number of attempts to visit CHAM projects in DR Congo were thwarted due to unrest, they finally travelled together for two weeks in early 2019. They visited projects in Bunia, Beni and Goma and looked at other opportunities in Bukavu. Jean-Paul has travelled and lived in these areas and is well known all over the region because of his previous roles in some of the large NGOs.

It was after this visit when BHW's New Partnership Facilitator was able to see first-hand the work CHAM was doing on the ground that a decision was made to commence partnering with Jean-Paul.  

Beneficiaries

The initial beneficiaries of this partnership will be 40 vulnerable women (two self-help groups), mainly widows, and their children. This equates to around 200 people in total.  

What We Like About The Partnership

There is a strong structure around this with clear understandings about processes and outcomes.
There is a good rapport between the CHAM people and the beneficiaries. They care for them.
There is good accountability and record keeping.
They have an extensive network that will generate other opportunities for BHW in DR Congo. 
The strength of CHAM is that there is a spiritual aspect to it which is very different from other NGOs. 

Key People

Leadership Profile

Jean-Paul and his family are Congolese but they live in Uganda. They left the DR Congo in 2002 as refugees as a result of ethnic troubles that were sweeping the area and went to live in Kenya. At that time Jean-Paul had a BA in Organizational Development. Finding himself stranded in Kenya he became a student again at Nairobi International Leadership University (NILU) where he studied from 2002-2005. He completed a Masters degree in leadership. 

Prior to leaving the DRC he worked with Compassion International and on completion of his Masters he became involved in the NGO sector back in the DRC. From 2005 until recently he has held leadership roles in World Vision, World Relief, Tear Fund UK and Holland, and Action Aid International. He has a great deal of experience across many sectors and agencies. 

Jean-Paul formed CHAM partly as a reaction to the inefficiencies he observed in the large NGOs and the lack of spiritual perspective they encourage. He is building an effective team and is delivering high quality services in difficult circumstances. 

Other People Involved

Vangisivavi (left in photo) is the key CHAM man in Beni. Vangi is married to Rose and they have three children, one girl and two boys. They were married in 2009. Vangi studied a Bachelor of Community Development in Beni, finishing in 2010. He then did a 9-month course in Goma run by a French agency in the area of management and development leadership. He met Jean-Paul in Beni, but has known him for a long time. 

They are both from Beni and their families knew each other. Vangi was leading an NGO, REACH Italia (Render Effective Aid to Children), which had a sponsorship programme with 2,300 children. This was based in Lubero, 100 km south of Beni, but the rebel activity became intense and the whole programme failed. He was involved for five years. Jean-Paul was one of the consultants to REACH.

After the project stopped, he joined CHAM and has learned a lot from Jean-Paul, especially about development as opposed to aid. He likes to build the capacity of the women so they become self-sustaining and also help children as there are many orphans in this area. 

Vision And Annual Strategy

Vision 

The vision is to see vulnerable women becoming self-sustaining economically. This is a large vision with many potential participants. Jean-Paul is passionate about bringing hope and healing to all Congolese people. He is driven by the desire to contribute to an improvement in the quality of life of human communities living in abject poverty, in its full sense (spiritual, physical, social and mental). He developed CHAM as a Christian commitment based upon the prophet Ezekiel's vision, to promote holistic human development and transformation by freeing human communities living in the grip of extreme poverty.

Strategy

The strategy is to gather women into groups of 20 who then receive training about running a business and basic economics. They also receive trauma counselling as all of them are affected by past and current rebel activity and almost everyone has lost friends or family members.

Each group receives training and they are formed to assist each other. At the completion of the training each woman is loaned US$150 to start her business. The group is given a one-off amount and they have to make it work with the help of CHAM staff who are mentoring them. The groups that are already functioning are working well and have a 100% success rate so far. Each individual is able to borrow again from the group once they have repaid their previous loan. The term of each loan is six months. The interest rate is 2.5% per month, this is a high rate but it supports the administration and grows the capital.

Within five years each woman's family will be self-sustaining and generating enough income to flourish. If BHW is able to assist two or three groups per year, in five years that would mean almost 300 women and their families have been helped.