A Way Forward – The Makita Programme 2

For the first time, global population estimates this year show that more people live in cities than in rural areas. By 2020, according to the international Resource Centre for Urban Agriculture and Forestry, some 75 percent of the world's city dwellers will live in developing countries – many of them in poverty. Already in parts of sub-Saharan Africa, according to the UN, almost three-quarters of city residents live in rapidly growing slums.

Esengo/Pangea Focus on Slum Sanitation and Personal Hygiene

Urban poverty’s most lethal threat is poor sanitation and unhygienic practices. This is why, in July 2006 Pangea’s Consultant met with Fondation Esengo to review the criteria and logistics needed to implement their local nurse’s proposal for a Life Education Workshop. The workshop began first with the training of the Esengo staff about some simple but important hygiene rigours that they could then teach to the young girls enrolled in Makita Literacy and Sewing classes who would in turn be available to provide training first for student family members and thereafter in the community to other poor women and their families.
To date all staff have been trained as hygiene trainers while the training reached the 310 beneficiaries in the programme.
The training combines personal hygiene and communal hygiene. The training was extended in January 2007 to community headmasters in neighbouring schools and local associations. This led to the creation of a committee of concerned parents and faculty to teach primary school children about environmental hygiene; this committee Vendredi sans sachets (Friday No Plastic Bags!) is active without directly being funded by Pangea, but indirectly through Fondation Esengo’s Maman Rose, our Makita Programme Coordinator, who purchased the brooms the committee uses for better and faster clean-ups. The committee is now organizing to secure funds for an area incinerator to burn the accumulated rubbish.

Urban Agriculture in the Slums/Neglected Areas

Urban agriculture provides a complementary strategy to reduce urban poverty and food insecurity and enhance urban environmental management. Urban agriculture plays an important role in enhancing urban food security since the costs of supplying and distributing food to urban areas based on rural production and imports continue to increase, and do not satisfy the demand, especially from poorer sectors of the population. Alongside food security, urban agriculture contributes to local economic development, poverty alleviation and social inclusion of the urban poor and women in particular, as well as to the greening of the city and the productive reuse of urban wastes The importance of urban agriculture is increasingly being recognised by international organisations like UNCED (Agenda 21), UNCHS (Habitat), FAO (World Food and Agriculture Organisation), and CGIAR (international agricultural research centres)(RUAF Resource Centre on Urban Agriculture & Food Security).
The population trends toward concentrated city growth of more impoverished inhabitants are a huge challenge when it comes to food and nutrition. Bringing rural-grown produce to people living in infrastructure-poor cities is difficult. In any case, many impoverished city dwellers do not have money for fresh groceries. This pressing reality is forcing aid workers to consider agricultural alternatives in the cities and not solely rural produce transport to cities that do not have paved roads nor a market infrastructure to guarantee minimal hygiene standards. City-based hunger is already a reality in Kinshasa. Many organizations are looking at urban gardens as a solution to chronic health problems to replace eventual feeding programs for malnourished children and their families. There are success stories in this area for Kinshasa, dating back to 1999 with a Presbyterian Project sponsored by many international donors such as WFP and the EU.
Unaware of this trend Esengo Fondation identified agricultural training as one of three key activities that could provide them with sustainability for their literacy and livelihood programme Makita 2, while at the same time guarantee the health of their staff, the orphans, their primary school children from poor families and the ndoki children they are attempting to reintegrate into their families.
As a follow-up to my Monitoring end Evaluation Mission for Pangea in February 2005, I returned to Kimbanseke in February 2006 to meet with Esengo and solicit their planned activity calendars from March to September 2007.

Food Sustainability for Community Impact

During the above mentioned process Esengo confirmed three activities: their Atelier work, agricultural training and pig raising as key activities.
For the agricultural activities it was agreed that there would be three cycles of training each using more complex cultivating methods and growing longer-season products. It was also agreed that the cycles would be implemented by an agronomist and veterinarian requested from the well-known ITAV (Institut Technique de Agronomique et Vétérinaire), located in the area. With this technical support in place Esengo should be able feed its beneficiaries when funding ends in February 2008. This then is one aspect of their way forward. The veterinarian supplied by ITAV is a last year student and is being paid monthly by Fondation Esengo to oversee the pig raising. Esengo had lost some 35 pigs in 2004-2005 without such assistance. They are encouraged now that two of their surviving pigs are now 16 under the supervision of the student veterinarian. In November they will start their second cycle of pig raising beginning with the selection of hybrids, favourable environmental conditions needed to raise pigs and the prevention of diseases.
With first cycle harvest in April 2007 of merchandise produce Esengo began providing meals for the teachers and diversifying the food given to the children and orphans in their care. They have also committed to providing meat to all their beneficiaries at Christmas this year, if not free then at a reduced price to ensure that those households that only eat meat once a year will be able to do so in December.

Management Training and Local Direction and Support

To foster more effective management, a local consultant (Lilas Pemba) who is also a gender specialist was hired by Pangea to begin working with Esengo staff from April-July 2007 to demonstrate what additional skills they needed know now that they’ve had project management training in April, that too financed by Pangea.
Building on what they learned from Lilas the Esengo staff during my September mission decided they could take over the full management of the Makita2 programme in November 2007 and supervise the implementation of Makita3 for November to February 2008 in which Esengo plans a third and final cycle of agricultural training and hybrid pig raising to ensure the animals’ resilience against epidemics that are common in Kimbanseke given the overcrowding and squalor. For the Women’s Centre they envisage supplementary courses in French and Lingala to begin in January to reinforce the literacy skills gained. They also want to continue micro-finance sensitization to begin for October-November 2007 which they have asked Pangea to finance using an expert from the Women’s mutual MUFESAKIN.

Local Project Management/Microfinance /Civil Rights

The decision by Pangea to hire gender Specialist and micro-finance advocate, Lilas Pemba is a strategic one. Based on my September Mission contacts a parallel civil society community impact strengthening will occur as the Fondation Esengo diversifies the focus of their activities leading them to need and be able to use the issues of civil society networking they are just beginning to deal with in their programming. Lilas data base of widows in the community and the unemployed young people and infants in these families will be the first signal for Fondation Esengo that they are touching on pressing issues for the community while sponsoring activities for their women’s centre. Others will follow such as: their already identified Education for Life trainings request for widows who cannot read and the young unemployed in their households. Their support of the Sexual Violence training run by the Nurse/Clinic Coordinator in their Centre along with the other neighbouring schools both private and public in the area.
These workshops, as part of Esengo Foundation’s health component are expected to be an integral part of the Makita project for future trainees, and simultaneously be offered as a service to beneficiaries’ family members, teachers, marginalized families in the area, and displaced women wanting to organize similar workshops.
Amid DRC’s mosaic of violence, abuse and the constant denial of even the most basic human rights, women’s associations and small neighbourhood NGOs like Fondation Esengo are re-created over and over again even though they lack the most essential skills to ensure their continuity. Too many simply flounder and die when their foreign donors or international NGOs’ funds dry up. This has been the story of many micro-credit schemes in Kinshasa where a thriving commercial base is difficult to maintain given the amount of impunity that exists for mafia-type middle men in most areas. We are focussing on micro-finance where the impetus for opportunity comes from the community members themselves based on their own particular livelihood needs and the community answers they can devise to meet them.
With MUFESAKIN sensitization training beginning in October for 5 individuals selected by Fondation Esengo, our approach for the micro-finance of future enterprises begins with our beneficiaries taking into consideration the following principles (OSCAl source on best practices for Africa mircofinance model):

• pooling together of people’s resources
• relying and building upon tradition (something they know)
• reinforcing microfinance to empower the local private sector
• striving for efficiency, this includes maintenance of tools and better working habits.

Collective and cooperative support in our approach is two-fold: first, group formation for individual and community goals is part of the African tradition, second the common resources or lack of them in a disadvantaged community, engenders a mentality/approach to problems to be seen as mutual rather than individual.
Regular meetings are held to reinforce group solidarity, discipline and repayments. This group solidarity, while empowering individuals to not feel alone or helpless, extends outward regionally and nationally to form networking groups.
Making local knowledge a priority ensures sustainability with the local community.
From the very beginning we have been supporting efforts for direct supply and market linkages to small, medium businesses that target non-traditional, low volume high value-added products that can lead to niche growth.
In Esengo’s summary report to Pangea for the period March – August 2007, the staff included for the first time as one of their goals for the 250 girl mothers to graduate in 2008, to give them awareness training through practical examples of civil rights in their community and area. This is a big swing away from Esengo’s rejection of a human rights seminar our local partner proposed for them in 2006.
As it was explained to me “We’ve gotten all that training about human rights in the church we know all about our responsibilities. These girls and girl mothers who missed out on their education need awareness that can make a difference in their everyday lives; dealing with civil rights is a small step towards broader human rights kinds of issues. People keep pushing at us about it when we don’t even have judges, lawyers or even policemen who hear us or even want to.”

The Clothing Atelier & Esthetiques in 2008

This year the Atelier had a profit of $1,507.5O meaning that for each month they had a profit of over $251.00 up from their projected profit of $194.00 a month. Once they get connected to an electricity line they hope to see even better profits with the embroidery machine moved out of the parish to the centre.
For January Esengo has budgeted for an beautician course at the request of several girls graduating from the literacy preparatory classes who want to acquire skills as beauticians. This will be a 6-month trial activity with a review for impact in June when the school closes and the girls are ready to apply what they’ve learned on real customers in the neighbourhood. Afternoon classes will be required for this trial course, but those signing-up say it will be a great opportunity for some summer work in 2008, and what woman doesn’t want to look nice when she’s on holiday?
Right now in Kimbanseke the Esengo Professional Women’s Centre is busy enrolling latecomers and gearing up for the customer orders and marketing activities they are initiating to meet their December deadlines. I am sure I speak for everyone at Pangea when I say that Maman Rose, the Esengo staff and students are ready to conclude an awesome year of achievements in their growth towards sustainability and community involvement: Keep up the good work!

Makita Goals for 2008

• 250 girl mothers & young girls will know how to read and write
• 250 girl mothers & young girls will have acquired professional aptitudes and skills
• 250 girls will be trained & sensitized to the issues of civil rights
• 250 girls will be accomplished seamstresses
• 250 girls will be aware of practices for good health and hygiene
• 15 orphan & abandoned children will have access to the right to food and shelter
• 250 girls & girl mothers capable of managing small associations or lucrative activities that generate revenue.