Refugee Charcoal Project in Goma - North Kivu, DRC

Rapport of the Charcoal Project in Goma, North Kivu the Democratic Republic of Congo for the last three March, April and May 2024: The Project needs a seed grant.  

We still believe that this project is much better to protect environment and the whole charcoal production is environment friendly, it is more economic and create employment. As per now when North Kivu is confronted to the current humanitarian crisis, this project of charcoal is a solution to cooking challenges faced by Internally Displaced Persons in Camps, and this project should protect women from being raped.

During these three months we produced charcoal and was sold to the public, only that the quantity was too small in order to cover the whole market. The demand is high and on top of that we have not yet supplied it in many parts of Goma.

As we communicated in our last report, this project needs funding in term of seed grand which will be used in order to produce more but this has not yet been achieved. For these three months we reduced the number of days and were able to produce 150 pieces of charcoal once a week.

However this project has exactly kept refugee and host communities together in one group, the team involved is gaining more experience and has been invited by other groups to teach them how these pieces of charcoal are made. On top of that the project has brought economic advantages to the few households who have used the charcoal and brought some money to the group which helps refugees to keep hope alive and solve some of their problems. We are so glad to observe that this project continues to inspire refugees to become solutions to their problems among themselves, and refugee members of this project were recently invited to join the African Refugee Women Network (ARWNet), which they now represent in North Kivu, this is because they were already organized, and were able to meet regularly.

We continue calling upon people of good will to support this project financially in order to make one among the big refugee investment here in Goma, North Kivu, the Democratic Republic of Congo and that will change the narrative about refugees.

Once funds are available, we know what we should do, as we produce more charcoal, we also need to train other people, hold community meetings and engage authorities at all levels.

Dear Sir/Madam,

For the last few months this project has been facing many challenges and could not move forward but we still have hope that it will pick up.

The external challenges

The war that is drawing closer to Goma, in DRC has pushed so many people to come to Goma which is still the only safe zone, and these people are in very difficult situation lacking everything. The place were we made the Charcoal from has been invaded by the new arrivals and and new wave of IDPs,

Goma Town is more insecure currently and in order to survive the hash conditions some people are restoring to all forms of coppying mechanisms including taking whatever they found on their way, and for us this is normal. Most of our Charchoal already produced was taken a certain night by unidentified persons who break into the house and took everything including all our equipement. We received some information that these people were among the IDPs in the difficult situation, we understood that it was normal for them to do that in order to survive for the next few days, they sold off all these things we had in order to get food.

The security of the charcoal we are making and the security of the equipement is as per now a serious problem which needs serious investment. The model of this project was to make it a long-term activity in order to solve the community charcoal so that we can reduce pressure on Virunga National Parc, and also create employment to refugees and other members of the community. So the idea was to make it a long-term investiment, however the current humanitarian crisis in North Kivu and in Goma has affected it as people are in severe need of humanitarian relief aid including this charcoal in order to cook the food they get. We do not have funding that can make it one among the humanitarian interventions in Goma in order to produce enought charcoal and distribute to those in need.

Internal challenges

This project was being ran by refugees and few people from the host commiunities but again as the war draws closer, refugees are disappearing because they do not want to appear publicly as we known and weel identified refugees. Refugees believe that the M23 rebels are looking for anyone who is from Rwanda in order to kill them.

Lastly as we said, most of our equipment was taken by those who wanted to survive, this requires us to start again this project from zero. That is very fine.

Options

Our Chairperson of the Board of Director gave us a plot of land in Bulengo IDP Camp which can be used in order to continue this project, and in this camp at least those inside are already stable because they have been there for long, in case we get the funding this project can shift to this land,

The other option is to lent a fenced plot in Goma where we can make this charcoal from in a secured place but also this needs enough funding,

The last option is to continue the fundraising until when the war ends or when solutions are taken in order to help those who are in need so that our project can continue in the same place, but it will need to be secured,

Conclusion

We still believe in this project and we want it to continue, this war will finish and this project will move on, as per now we would like for more support in order to make it a humanitarian intervention that can provide charcoal to some vulnarable IDP groups of people.

Thanks