Action Kivu and Ms. Magazine: Where Women's Independence Lifts Up Entire Communities

As we celebrate seven years of Action Kivu, of seeing the impact of your commitment to emboldening and educating women and children in Congo, as we witness their lives transform and we see hope finding a home in a brighter, more peace-filled tomorrow, we're thrilled to share that Ms. Magazine highlighted our work on their blog.In the midst of news reports like these from The Washington Post and The L.A. Times about the escalating violence and crisis in Congo, in which women and children are the most vulnerable victims of conflict, there has never been a more critical time to invest in the education and entrepreneurial training of women and girls in Congo. As Action Kivu's Executive Director Rebecca Snavely told Ms. Magazine:The article you reference reports on unspeakable violence against children and women, and the trauma extends to the innocent men who are also survivors of or witnesses to brutal attacks, unable to save their families from such violence. It is unspeakable, but if we do not speak about it, and against it, it will never change. Local organizations like Action Kivu provide several avenues through which change can occur, mainly through providing the space to be vocal. The meeting spaces and classes embolden girls and women to embrace their power to speak out and cry out for justice against such violence, to learn that rape is not their fault, to come together and speak about their experiences. To call out for leaders to act, and to learn to be the leaders they are looking for. The educational gatherings for men provide opportunities for change, for men to see women as their equals and allies in creating a peaceful world for them and their children to thrive.This is not to negate how terrifying it is to be in fear of such attacks, and to feel helpless. Writing this in my relatively peaceful home of Los Angeles, I cannot speak properly to what it is to live in this fear and environment. I can only quote what the girls and women said to me when I was there this year—almost every single girl I asked about what Congo needs right now answered  “Peace.” Iragi, a Sewing Workshop student in this year’s Class of 2017, dug deeper into that need. “If girls and women are given the chance, given an education, we can change the future of Congo,” Iragi says. “We have to start within ourselves. If there is no love in ourselves and our families, the government, the leaders, will not love, as they are just people, raised up in our homes, our families.” Read on to learn what inspires us, what is happening now, and what has changed over the past seven years. Then take action, and share the story to amplify the voices and stories of women and girls around the world!We are grateful for your partnership as we look forward to the next seven years! SaveSave

Celebrating Interdependence: Starting a Sewing Co-Op in Congo

We celebrate interdependence this Independence Day in Congo with Marijane, Chanceline, and Martine, who started a sewing co-op after graduating @Action Kivu's Sewing Workshop in 2015.Using the machines they received upon graduation thanks to a generous donation from Robin Wright and Karen Fowler's Pour Les Femmes that year, the three women say that when they work on each order together, they finish faster, allowing them to take more orders per month.

We love to work together, and this is something we learned from the Sewing Workshop program. We are working, we are strong.

Marijane (pictured left) shares what @Action Kivu's Sewing Workshop means for her life:

Since I graduated, I feel completely different. I have a voice. I pay for my child's school fees each month.

This year we need your help to graduate the Class of 2017. And we know, from statistics and from the stories of our alumni, that when you invest in women's education and vocational training, you invest in their children's future, and the health of the community. Take action: Invest in the future of Congo today! Save

Celebrating 7 Years: Your Impact in Congo Through Action Kivu

We're excited to celebrate seven years with you, our Action Kivu family! We started with a small sewing workshop and education assistance program in eastern Congo that with YOUR partnership, has grown to a community center that houses the Sewing Workshop, Literacy Classes, Bread Baking, Basket Weaving, and Soap Making courses, and over 3000 children have been sent to school. Nearby is our shared farm where over 80 women farm their own plots of land. We have graduated 236 women with the tools and education to start their own businesses, and have 48 students in the Class of 2017 eager to receive a sewing machine to start their new lives.Your investment in the future of these women is changing lives, and an investment in women is an investment in the future generation, and a more just world. Read more and donate today at http://www.actionkivu.org/action/What is the impact of your giving? Read stories from our alumni to learn how their lives have changed:

• Sewing Workshop Alumnus Francine: Entrepreneur for Equality
• Sewing Workshop Alumnus Mwamini on Sisterhood

And meet the current Class of 2017, eager to start their co-ops and businesses!

• Class of 2017 Sewing Workshop Student Bahati on Finding Courage
• Start with Love: Sewing Student Iragi on Raising Up Good Leaders

Hear how this training has changed lives, from the women of the Sewing Workshop, Class of 2015!

Women Who Farm: Jeannette on having her own plot of land in Congo

Farming my own plot of land is so sweet, not only to sell vegetables for income, but to eat them at times they're not normally for sale. ~Jeannette

Jeannette is one of over 80 women in eastern Congo who now have a plot of land to grow fruits and vegetables, thanks to your support of Action Kivu!Our agronomist Mukengere is a student at the university in Bukavu, and teaches the women the organic and sustainable techniques he is learning in his class on agriculture and climate change. They now use local grasses to combat insects, and each farmer has her own compost heap at home, as well as the shared compost for the farm.Read more stories of hope and transformation:

• Why Mapendo and Faida share a plot of farmland
• Meet Beatrice Ntankwinja – mother of five, grandmother of one, proud farmer feeding her family
• Seeds of Hope: Planting Cabbage and Peace

Join the movement and invest in this world-transforming work today!

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Take Courage: Life Lessons from the Girls and Women of Congo

In eastern Congo, girls and women walk for miles – to find work, to find water, to find buyers for the fruits and vegetables they tended from seed to harvest. Many of these paths are not safe; armed militias patrol the same roads, and risk is a regular part of life. They step into the unknown each day, to forge ahead to meet the needs of their families. Courage is a daily part of life.Merriam Webster defines courage as mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty. The word originated from the Middle English corage, from Anglo-French curage, from quer, coer heart, from the Latin cor.We often say "take heart," to rally one to be courageous is to be strong in what they're doing, to reflect on what drives them to keep going. Don't give up.20 year old Bahati was tempted to give up during her first few days at Action Kivu’s Sewing Workshop. She had heard about Action Kivu’s Literacy Program and Sewing Workshop from a girl who had graduated from the vocational training, who told Bahati, “if you are a courageous woman and you go there, you learn, and your life changes.”Bahati was desperate for change: After her father died, she had only been able to attend school up to the fourth grade. One of nine children, she was a new mother, and the father of her baby girl was gone, offering no support. Bahati felt like a beggar, asking for a bar of soap from her mother, to wash her clothes, to care for her baby. She took the girl's advice, and beginning with the Literacy Program, continued her education in numeracy and writing, before starting the Sewing Workshop.Those first few days in the course, Bahati almost quit. She didn’t know anyone in her class. Her legs and ankles hurt from the strange movements as she tried to find the right rhythm to move the foot pedal to power the Singer machine. She recalled the girl who had gone before her, and what she had said about courageous women. “I remembered the word courage,” Bahati recalled six months later, “and I took courage, and continued.”Take heart. Take courage. Women aren’t taught to take. To “take what is yours” is a phrase often taught to men, and for many women, “take what is yours” has a negative connotation: it has been practiced as a way to deny others what is theirs in the process. In that light it is the product of the scarcity mindset, that there isn’t enough for everyone, so you must take.It is time to redefine the phrase, and re-frame it in abundance. It is time for women to take what is theirs: equality. To step into the unknown, armed not with violence, but with the knowledge of self-worth. Bahati had been encouraged by another woman who had learned from her experience: that by stepping into the unknown, she learned, and her life changed.Still a student, Bahati’s life has changed. She is already earning income for herself and her 16-month-old baby. “I didn’t think I was ready to be a seamstress, but people see what I do, and they bring me fabric to make things for them,” she says. “The Sewing Workshop created independence in my life. Before I was begging even for a bar of soap, to wash clothes, to bathe, to wash my child’s clothes. People realize that I am no longer the person they knew.”Bahati sees a bright future for her daughter. "I plan to send her to school, and teach her everything I know."Your donation to Action Kivu is an investment in Bahati and the growing community of girls and women who will learn from her courage, and take heart to find their own. When she graduates this summer with a sewing machine, Bahati plans to start a business repurposing second-hand clothes from the markets of Bukavu, the city 25 kilometers from Mumosho. She’ll take what others toss aside, deconstruct them, sew them into a new style, give them new life.Be a part of this movement: Give new life and new opportunities today!Save

Wedding Season: Give the gift of a goat!

It's wedding season! Looking for a unique gift? Make a donation on behalf of the happy couple! An $80 gift to Action Kivu buys a healthy goat for a family in eastern Congo. Donate online!See My Goat is Your Goat in Action: Namwezi paying forward a baby goat to Antoinette

International Children's Day in Congo: Space for Kids to be Kids

In "Stolen Childhoods," Save the Children reports that one in every four children, at least 700 million children worldwide, have had the promise of a full childhood brought to an early end. "The reasons vary from extreme violence and conflict, often driving families from their homes; early marriage and pregnancy; child labor; poor health; malnutrition and food insecurity; and not having the chance to go to school." The Democratic Republic of Congo, where Action Kivu invests in the communities of eastern Congo, ranks 162nd, the 11th in the worst of the world.We see so many of these children where we work in Mumosho, kids denied an education because of poverty, malnutrition and child labor in families desperate to survive the day. In response to these horrifying facts, we offer educational assistance, with the plan to open the first Congo Peace School (more on that soon), we invest in the lives of the mothers, providing vocational training and job skills to earn the income to break the cycle of extreme poverty, and a playground space for kids to be kids.SaveSaveJoin the movement! Learn more about Action Kivu, and consider donating monthly: we need your support to sustain and grow our programs investing in the kids of Congo.

Now You're Speaking My Language: Connecting in Congo

Action Kivu’s Executive Director Rebecca Snavely recently returned from visiting Congo and all the programs our partners support. She writes here about the joy of finding shared understanding despite language barriers.)I’d spent a half hour repeating the few words I knew in Swahili and Mashi, the local dialect: “Jambo!” to greet the girls and women in Action Kivu’s Sewing Workshop, and “Coco!” to thank them for allowing me to wander around their space, my face half hidden behind a camera, leaning in to take their photos.They started to tease me, repeating Jambo! Coco! and laughing. I made a mental note to learn a few phrases in Swahili before my next trip to Congo. Koubde, a slight, older man who teaches embroidery and also repairs the pedal-powered sewing machines tinkered with one machine, tried to explain in French what he was doing. The words mechanic and machinist sound almost the same in English and French, and both our eyes lit up at finally understanding each other. The whole room broke out in joyful laughter.“Now you’re speaking my language” generally refers to being on the same page, having similar tastes in politics or movies. It reflects back on how it feels to understand someone, and more so, to be understood.Interviewing the girls in Action Kivu’s Sewing Workshop, many of them had felt illiterate on their first day. They didn’t know anyone, and they didn’t speak the language of sewing – they didn’t know how to operate the pedal to make the machine run, or how to thread the needle, and they were afraid they would not be able to learn. Many of them had no classroom experience with a teacher: denied an education because of their gender and poverty, they were unaccustomed to the sewing trainer’s commanding tone.Weeks passed, and the girls were all speaking the same language. It sounded like scissors slicing through fabric, needles piercing their path through the brightly colored cloth, laughter at stories shared over the rhythmic sound of their feet pressing the pedals. Stories that gave each girl the glimpse that they were not alone. Each story was unique, based on the life of each girl or woman, but the same themes ran through all. Denied an education because of extreme poverty. Raped and impregnated. Abandoned with a baby. Unsure how to obtain the good life – that of  being able to feed oneself and your child, and send them to school to stop this cycle. Speaking the same language, they were understood, and realized they were not alone.

Growing Food and Community in Congo: We work faster together! We're like family

Mapendo and Faida share a plot of farmland in Action Kivu's Organic Food for All Program."We work faster together! We're like family."Learn more about Action Kivu's work in growing food and community and combating malnutrition here.

Sisterhood: Together We Feel Stronger [Congo]

In Swahili, Mwamini means trusted, believing. "I live my name," Mwamini says. "Without believing, it would have been impossible to graduate from the Sewing Workshop."Mwamini was forced to quit elementary school in the 4th grade, her family unable to afford school fees for their 6 children. "Sewing is a passion for me, I wanted to do it for a long time," she says. "I feel proud and unique when I make fashion."Her father built the small structure for shade where Mwamini, Claudine, and Noella run their sewing co-op along the main road, running their business with the pedal-powered Singer machines they received when they graduated."I work in a co-op to promote unity and sisterhood. Together we feel stronger."

Be the change that you wish to see in the world. (Gandhi)