Emergency fund to Refugee Human Rights Defenders

In Goma North Kivu Province in DRC since the rebels captured the town 9 Refugee Human Rights Defenders are in dire situation, living in hidding. We have managed to provide them shelters where to stay in security, and and sometimes food when we can manage. 

For the last two months COHERE has mobilized money and has sent us some in order to help them with food and medical care. The fact is that money is not enough to cover their basic needs. The recent money we got from COHERE helped us to to facilitate transport to 3 Refugee Human Rights Defenders who moved to Uganda where they will be at least in security. Now their main challenges in Uganda is shelter, food, medical treatment, education for their children and the capacity to function.

Through this support we are glad that these 3 are now out of danger, in the same way the remained money we bought food for one week to help the 6 refugee human rights defenders who are still hidding in Goma. We greatly thank COHERE for this kind support and greatly all individual donors who have helped those in need.

The other category of refugee human rights defenders fled to Burundi where they are also living in very difficult situation, they need food, shelter, medical treatment, education and other basic need.

And the last category of refugee human rights defenders fled to Kalemie in Tanganyika Province in the Democratic Republic of Congo. We have visited some who are in extrime difficult situation of not having shelter, food, medical treatment, clean water and other basic needs.

As organization we are trying our best to keep in contact with all of them and at least console them and encourage them to remain resilient. The who day we keep on engaging them through social media, we know that this is not what they need first but at least this is what we can give now.

We still call upon you to stread the word to all people through social media in order to support all those in need.

Thanks

Report on the situation of Refugee Human Rights Defenders for the last three months, helping one human rights defender will support a whole refugee community. 

First of all, we humbly thank our dear donors and their generous contributions towards this cause, and we wish them a very happy and wonderful year 2025. We shall be happy to journey with you this year also and it is for us a privilege that you choose to donate to us.

Last year our projects suffered for the lack of funding, generally we received one donation per month and the average amount was between10-50$, generally from our previous donors. Our aim to reach at least 100 donors was not achieved. However the work could not stop, money will get us on the way.  

At least when faced with problems some refugee human rights defenders now know that there is someone they can contact and ask for solidarity and assistance. We are so glad that we have also alerted when necessary and have managed to put in place a website which is helping us to share more about our work. This is unique and the first of its kind in the world.

For the first time in November 2024 a delegation from the Democratic Republic of Congo participated in Pre-Summit in Kampala focusing on forced migrant’s leadership in the humanitarian space. This event helped us to build contacts with refugee leaders in Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria, and South Africa where we did not have strong contacts before.

During these three months, a lot has happened. In Uganda one refugee human rights defender was arrested and detained in Kampala main prison, we did all we could with the little means we had, we are so glad that he was released. In Kenya we received requests from 3 refugee human rights defenders who had problems with house rent and food, in the Democratic Republic of Congo 7 refugee human rights defenders came to seek for support for their different issues.

We also advocated for 2 refugee human rights defenders in Uganda and their problems were solved, however we lacked funds in order to advocate for refugee human rights defenders in DRCongo to be granted the Refugee Traveling Document, this is still the pending issue which we should collectively work for, and it has affected many refugees in DRC who cannot travel.

Refugee Leaders in Goma came to our offices and participated in three zoom meetings together with other refugees in the world, this was not there before, and also contributed ideas which were sent to Geneva during various UNHCR meetings. Currently if you have observed at least in different meetings in Geneva on refugee issues, someone must say something about refugees in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This was not there before.

Challenges

This project is also affected by the lack of funds, refugee human rights defenders and other vocal refugee leaders need to be empowered economically (they should be able to have in place a stable source of income so that they are able to do their work of helping others), they should be trained (various training on leadership, policies about refugees, advocacy, human rights, peace and conflict resolution, civic education, community engagement, computer and Languages mainly English and French), and then given opportunities to continue with studies among others.

Refugee leaders need opportunities to network first of all among themselves and them among partners who may listen to their problems, and ensure that they have opportunities to participate in decision making.

It may be impossible to advance the world commitment of the localization of relief aid at the community level if we do not invest in people in their communities.

So, join us to invest in refugees themselves which is the only solution.

Thanks