When the world has changed, where do you go?
Florence and her grandchildren are desperate. Learn how Tearfund is hearing the voices of the hopeless and giving them hope.
Gunshots fire outside. Artillery explosions can be heard from the capital city. The streets are littered with abandoned uniforms and military equipment.
This is just a glimpse of what life is like in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) right now.
In the DRC, conflict and poverty continue to grip the eastern part of the country. In one of the most resource-rich countries in the world, millions of people are hungry and without other basic needs like water and shelter.
Farmers, who make up over half of the country’s workforce, stay close to the city out of fear for their lives, unable to expand into the countryside. Combining this issue with climate change, farmers are not yielding nearly enough food to sell, let alone feed their families.
More than 400 000 families were displaced within the first three months of this year alone, and the numbers are still growing. People are generously taking these internally displaced people (IDPs) in, but without enough food, hunger still strikes. The situation is dire.
“The world doesn’t seem the same anymore,” a woman named Florence mourns.
Florence is a widow living in Northern Kivu, DRC. With eight children and multiple grandchildren living with her, there are many mouths to feed. She remembers a time when her farm flourished without even needing fertilizer, when the soil was abundant and fertile, and when her and her husband lived joyously with their children. But times have changed, and her grandchildren go to bed hungry.
Yet there is still hope.
Tearfund, in collaboration with the local church, is on the ground working. A solution is being implemented that focuses on bringing food security for those who are struggling. By training farmers in better farming techniques and improving the seed supply chain, farmers can feel more confident about what they are growing. Tearfund is also starting Village Savings and Loans (VSL) groups. These allow people to take out loans and have a built in community to help each other thrive.
Generous families who have invited IDPs into their homes will be given money to help provide for those they are caring for, and these people will also receive training to initiate small businesses that can help them eventually become self-sufficient.
Tearfund believes that working through the local church is the best way to help people escape poverty and reach their God-given potential because the church knows their community best. Churches are able to recognize needs and abilities within their communities, and this helps toward long term change rather than short term aid, which can often be only a band-aid fix.
Through this project, many have seen radical transformations in their lives! Florence admires her neighbour who now has a flourishing farm and has become self-sufficient and happy thanks to the incredible training the church has provided. She longs to have fields of flowering flora too, but does not have access to this program yet.
But you can change that.
Your generosity is helping people in the DRC to find food, safety, and hope in these desperate times. Every prayer and every dime shows a little bit of Jesus’s love to those who need it. Thank you!
Florence hopes and prays for this kind of transformation: “If you support me, I’ll feel like a real person with dignity again.”
