Education and Trauma-Healing for Congolese Children

Imagine you’re a child in a war zone in the Congo and your parents were just killed. What would you do? How would you get anywhere safe? Would you even know of any resources that help orphans?

The non-profit BRIC (Building Resilience in the Congo) is one of these resources. A stranded orphan might not know about them, of course, but BRIC actively finds the children who need their help (as well as teenagers who’ve been forced into battle and taught to rape and kill) and provides them with a comprehensive trauma-healing and educational program. You can see more details of this, as well as more photos and videos, on their facebook page https://m.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100068983681727. And of course, what they’re short on is not talent, nor compassion, nor generosity, but funds. So this is where you have the chance to help them, even from thousands of miles away.

Most of the donations will go to school supplies for the orphans and families in BRIC who can’t afford them. If you donate $25, for instance, it will cover the costs of one student’s entire set of school supplies: notebook, pens, slate, and so on, even their uniform. If you need to save up money to make that donation, you could skip your next trip to a fancy restaurant with your friends/colleagues and bring homemade treats for a nice picnic at your local park instead.

BRIC has been reaching out to anyone who might possibly have the generosity to donate so that they can provide for academic needs as well as some more dire needs, such as building a house for a BRIC student named Odette and her mom and brother, who became homeless recently when their house burned down. They also have been putting on performances for the local community so the students can showcase their talents and spread awareness about relevant issues. Here’s a 20-minute performance that was designed to illustrate the life of the people of Eastern Congo https://youtu.be/gUI3bxMRK0I?si=PUXrZCLSkVpipfrp

I will be sending these donations to BRIC’s coordinator and artistic director, François Byemba, with whom I’ve been speaking over WhatsApp. I’ll be using Sendwave, a platform that provides an easy and direct way to send money internationally— I’ve used it a couple times when sending money to François previously, and it worked.

As for who I am, my name is Elizabeth, I live in the U.S. and am still making my way through college while also doing non-profit work, and through this work I’ve been lucky enough to get to know activists like François in different regions of the world, and hearing him speak when we called over WhatsApp about the needs in his community made me want to spread awareness about BRIC and ask people back here in the US to make whatever contributions they can.

You personally can help make sure these kids in the Congo are provided with the crucial trauma-healing, transformative creative outlets, and academic education necessary to pursue their goals.