News about the children at Maison Msaada in Mwenga this time came directly to me from Angelo, the person who with great commitment and dedication has been running the project since I left more than a year ago. Angelo once again faced a long and dangerous journey, crossing the front line, to meet me in Bukavu during my short stay there.
Despite the war that continues about 20 km from Mwenga, the situation has remained relatively quiet. The children are preparing for end-of-year exams, and helping in the fields in their spare time. We have been harvesting maize, beans and other vegetables, and soon we will have to harvest cassava, which is the staple food there, unfortunately not all that we had planted due to the fact that part of the field we had rented was occupied by Burundian soldiers. We try little by little to make ourselves more self-sufficient in sourcing basic food, transportation from Bukavu having become extremely expensive.
We have been told by the community of at least four orphaned children who are particularly in need of help, from two different families, about ten kilometers from Mwenga, and we would like to take some of them, as we have room to take in more children.
The children were very happy with the things Angelo was able to bring them: shoes, clothes, some educational games, balls, drawing materials, sweets... They are still children who need to play and laugh, despite their experiences, despite the gunshots that often disturb their nights, and despite growing up surrounded by the military, which has no shortage of trying to lure our older girls, and it is a big job trying to divert them.
A few months ago we were able to purchase a nice fish pond, in which we "sowed" fish that will then reproduce and in about 6 months we hope to harvest. We are building on the edge of the pond a hut that we will give for use to some women to carry out there artisanal production of maize wine (kinyanga), so that the waste can be used as food for the fish.
We continue our follow-up program of epileptic children in the community (now about ten), to which a couple of adults have also been added. All are doing well and the children where possible attend school, we insist they do. An already older boy who also has some cognitive delay has been placed in our basic sewing class.
In April we started a new basic training course in sewing for single mothers (the third edition) while the girls from the previous course moved on to the advanced course after passing the final exam. For those who have already passed the advanced course, we gave the opportunity to come to the center once a week to use the machines and not lose the skills they have acquired.
We are beginning to recruit illiterate girls and women for a literacy course, which we would like to start soon. We would have many small projects to implement in Mwenga and Kamituga, the needs are many, and the situation of women, already so difficult, has been further aggravated by the strong presence of the different armed groups.....if only the situation could improve, but everything seems so stable in instability, nothing seems to want to change....
Again, a big thank you to all of you for your invaluable support that has enabled us to carry on the activities despite great difficulties and not to abandon our children and community!
