Annual Reports
As usual it was difficult to find out where our humanitarian aid would do the best service as these items can get easily mishandled. After searching for a long time i.e. who would use our complete dentist office the most effectively, we chose the “Salvation Army”, which is helping the poor here since decades. They appreciated our newer equipment to replace their ancient one. Finding the right people for the wheelchairs had other problems. The first lists of handicapped were either not complete or faulty. Other local NGOs were so unorganized, that when we’d arrive there we couldn’t even find a responsible person who would take care of the wheelchairs. After a long search we finally found a center Kikesa in Ngafula and another 11 centers of the “Bondeko Villages” where we got a valid list of their former students -mainly children. They have therapeutic centers where they were very…
Jul
2004
News about our Work in Kinshasa
The container finally arrived here and we thank God for some companies who helped us with the very high transport and handling charges, which came about to the same amount as the whole transport from Erfurt to Matadi. We also faced tremendous difficulties in our preparations for the distribution because the political situation here was quite turbulent in the last few months: two attempted coup d’etats including attacks of Rwandan soldiers and former rebels in the East of Congo which resulted in violent demonstrations in Kinshasa and in other cities against the MONUC, the peace keeping force of the UN for Congo. Several people on both sides lost their lives in all this and we had to stay in our house for several days during this time. In light of all these different complications we are planning to switch the focus of our aid from this container project to other…
Mar
2004
Behind the Scenes
We just returned from an evaluation visit in the Northwest of Congo in Mbandaka. The terrible civil war raged the worst in the North and East of the country. Although the situation is still the worst in the East because of ongoing unrest there, we decided to help in the North for now, because the East by far receives the biggest help and finances from a lot of international organizations while little help goes to the North. Before we get into more details, we would like to give you a little insight what all goes into this work, especially at the beginning stage of establishing a new mission station. When we arrived here last summer for the first time to check out the situation, we literally didn't know a soul. Only by a miracle one week before our flight from Cameroon we met a Congolese man, who gave us contact…