Goma and Healing Arts…..

1st Visit @ Heal Africa (Monday Afternoon)
Our first day in Goma was spent visiting the Heal Africa Center. They are located in the center of Goma. Goma is one of the largest cities in the Congo “Eastern Great Lake Area” and it belongs to the North Kivu province. Many of the people who have been displaced by the ongoing war over the last year (refugees) have made it to Goma hence this city has grown explosively over the last several years from 100,000 to 500,000 people. As many of the displaced lost their families, their belongings or sometimes faced neglect and shame from their families, they have transformed Goma into their new home.

I was struck by the amount of humanitarian agency 4x4’s trucks on the streets, “UN”; “OXFAM”; “Unicef”; driving around on almost semi-empty cars and given the condition of the roads and traffic around I felt I times I was partaking on a “Paris-Dakar” type of rally.

Heal Africa is a local Congolese NGO (with a US Non-profit established arm) who primarily focused their work with Congolese people from the North Kivu area. They provide medical services to the region and have been focusing on work with trying to develop communities within the northern area of this province. This organization was founded by a Congolese orthopedic surgeon Jo and his British wife Lyn. However due to the recent ongoing war, their support has focused on the women who have been unfairly the victims of such atrocious rape crimes.

Healing Arts is a group within Heal Africa that has focused on teaching women (who have been victims of the war) with skills such as sewing and weaving to empower them into an easier reintegration back to their normal lives. As we entered this center, the women received us with incredible energy, they sang to us and did a little dancing as well (video to be posted later). We spoke to Chelsie, a very young and sweet American woman who had been leading Healing Arts since last year. She spoke really good Swahili and explained in detail how the program has been working. The Healing Arts piece is somehow new to the organization so she is still working in creating some further curriculum for more skills for the women to learn. After our tour of the center (and Elayne’s interaction to but a tailored African dress, which made the main teacher very happy), Chelsie took us to a section in Goma to show us an incubation success story from 6 of the women who had come to this center.

Healing Arts gave them a small microcredit and set them up on a small shop with 6 months of paid rent and sewing machines. In just a couple of months, the women had paid back the credit and actually were starting to get their business going. They welcomed us (Chelsie especially) in a very sweet way and it was really empowering to see their drive and dedication of their work. After I played with a very cute baby, we left and headed back on our lovely bumpy journey back to our host house to rest. Later in the night, we brainstormed with Chelsie in how to better develop her curriculum on the new skills, certainly excited in being able to see if we can further assist them on their needs.
Tomorrow is Bukavu bound and Panzi hospital.

SVL (the dark one...)