Badara is a peripheral district of Kinshasathe capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo. If the tumultuous city has around twenty million inhabitants, this suburb of dirt roads has accumulated over the years around 28,000 people in one. … slum in which there is “a lot of inequalities and quite chaotic growth”, according to Claire Coppel, technician of one of the projects financed by the Council, which will implement Proclade and this concerns the training of young women.
Although the manager, returning from the African country, explains that “the first brick is not yet laid” for this recently approved initiative, the NGO promoted by the Claretian missionaries has a link with Badara. He has worked there for more than ten years, where there is a local team: “They support the population in their daily lives, they do pastoral work, but also social and listening work”he refers to. This allowed them to identify specific needs in a “very harsh reality” in which residents – in many cases a population displaced by armed conflicts – face many obstacles to moving forward, because “it largely determines where they live”. Despite its size, there is no market in Badara, access to employment is complicated, the health center has neither water nor electricity… And “there is no public school, because the neighborhood is not officially recognized as such”, he emphasizes. They only work “Charm schools,” with mediocre tuition fees and resultscontextualizes the humanitarian worker.
It is for this reason that the “Education that Transforms” project will begin with the construction of a school. With the aim of guaranteeing the right to basic and professional training for young women, “the idea was born from several interviews and working groups of mothers in difficulty”, explains Coppel. “Many single people with few resources to support their families,” as he describes it, became a motivation to go to “focus group” which represents women between 15 and 25 years old.
Knowing that they are often victims of social discrimination due to their status as single mothers, Proclade has designed three training courses that they consider “attractive” and capable of “generating opportunities” for them. The first course covers cutting and sewing – in Badara, clothes are made by hand and despite poverty, everyone strives to have a “Sunday” dress -; another would concern aesthetics and hairdressing, also with points of sale on site, and a third would allow the manufacture of cleaning products, another niche which will easily find its place locally.
As adults, the center will offer reading and writing reinforcement classes to the same girls, in cases where they encounter difficulties, since in many cases their family situation or early pregnancies keep them away from basic studies.
Badara, suburb of Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo
Proclade has already planned the space for the new building, construction of which will begin this month. “Within a year, we will have a functional school which will have trained two groups of girls”smiles Coppel, who estimates that they will be able to train around 400 young people per year.
All thanks to the impulse after being approved by this public appeal, which will provide them with 50,000 of the 70,000 euros needed to finance the project. Their work is a wheel of refining and publicizing projects that speak to impact and purpose in remote cities. “We often think that the cooperation sector is very distant and that we must communicate it.affirms the technician, who explains how the solidarity of partners, “sponsors” and administrations helps Proclade to participate in emergency campaigns and projects like this in Badara. “I think we will be able to do it well, we have a powerful and decisive opponent and there can always be unforeseen events, but we are optimistic,” he concludes.