“Do you see that girl over there?”
The most common question I get is “Why? Why the DRC?" The answer is simple; there’s a real need, one that is not being met. Education and security are intertwined in the DRC. Children who receive the equivalent of primary school education in rural villages around Goma have the opportunity to receive a secondary education in a larger town. These larger towns are further removed from areas of higher rebel activity, and closer to Goma and MONUSCO, the 34,000 person peacekeeping force lead by the United Nations.
The LEVE MOI Orphanage, Goma, DRC
There are endless facts that illustrate the situation in the Eastern DRC. Facts that plainly lay out a lack of educational facilities, food insecurity, violence, and poverty. But the numbers do nothing to put a human face on the issues.
The second orphanage I visited in August 2021 was LEVE-MOI in Goma. The large orphanage sits near the edges of a lava flow, the product of Mount Nyiragongo’s May 2021 eruption. Our visit there brought school supplies, and an opportunity to tour the facility.
Children sleep 16 to a room, with four children sharing a single mattress, two bunk beds to a room. Some of the younger children wet the bed they share with others. Many of the children only have a single plastic bag of clothing and belongings.
A typical bed at the orphanage that sleeps four.
During the course of our tour, I asked the director of LEVE-MOI Kambala Mukanda Elie where the children in the orphanage come from. What I learned was that these children were the “exceptional cases” from the rural areas surrounding Goma. From there, the conversation went like this:
Me: “I mean this kindly, but this all looks exceptional to me.”
Elie: “Do you see that girl over there?”
Me: “I do.” She was 9 or 10.
Elie: “She’s been here about a month a just started talking. Rebels came to her village and took her parents from their home. They then made her watch her parents’ execution.”
The children of the DRC are deserving of a future free of fear, death, and poverty.
A prayer written on the walls of the orphanage.
