Emergency Actions to Support Internally Displaced People in Goma – Democratic Republic Of Congo

Project location: Congo, Democratic Republic, Goma
Project start date: January 2013 - Project end date: March 2013
Project number: 2012-107
Beneficiary: Volontariato Internazionale per lo Sviluppo - VIS

This initiative, which received a grant from the Nando Peretti Foundation, aims at contributing to the restoration of the minimum conditions for access to basic resources for the survival of the big amount of displaced people flocked in to Goma because of the worsening of the crisis in the targeted area in recent weeks.
In particular, the project aims at providing for the coming months nutritional support, healthcare and housing to about 10,000 persons sheltered at the Don Bosco Center of Ngangi (Goma), mainly children, youth, women and sick people.
The project, at the same time, hoping in a gradual normalization of the socio-political situation at great risk in the context of Goma and the Great Lakes Region, will adopt an integrated approach proposing specific actions aimed at "normalizing" the living conditions of beneficiaries.
The beneficiaries, who are the most affected by the violence and abuses caused by the advance of rebel militias and by the clashes with the regular Congolese Army, mainly come from villages and camps of Northern Kivu. In the various departments of the Centre (Boarding, Maison Ushindi, Maison Gahinja and Maison Margherita) permanently also reside about 520 children and young people, especially orphans and abandoned children, former child soldiers and single mothers and/or victims of sexual abuse; i.e. all groups that cannot however find a placement in a family or other community and that, therefore, need to be sheltered by the Centre.
Primary healthcare will be provided by the Dispensary of the Centre and will face the most common diseases, both endogenous and exacerbated by the worsened situation: malaria, respiratory infections, worms, parasites and diarrhea, as well as outbreaks of epidemics, such as cholera.
For the cases requiring specific medical interventions, patients will be directed toward the other referral hospitals of the DBNG, if humanitarian corridors will be made available.
The foreseen activities are:
1) Food distribution;
2) Primary healthcare;
3) Distribution of "first aid kits " and follow-up of the returnees
VIS will be supported in the distribution and the implementation of the foreseen activities by Don Bosco Ngangi personnel and also by partner NGOs and organizations, such as Norwegian Refugee Council, WarChild UK, International Red Cross, Mercy Corps, that are coordinated by VIS volunteers and Salesians during this first phase.