RDC 20 – SCHOOL IS FOR EVERYONE
Project Location
The city of Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, with an estimated population in 2021 of 17 million inhabitants, is the third African agglomeration after Cairo and Lagos, and constitutes the largest French-speaking agglomeration in the world, having surpassed that of Paris in the 2010s, and is one of the most populated agglomerations in the world.
The level of literacy is very low throughout the country: only 48% of people are able to read and write, most of whom are men, with women often, for various reasons, not having the same opportunities. Family poverty is a major factor in the problem of exclusion of children from the school system. With parents prioritizing other family needs related to family survival, children's access to school remains a major challenge. On the one hand, the school dropout rate is increasing every year and, on the other, a large number of school-age children are not lucky enough to be enrolled in school. Children in a situation of social exclusion have in common the fact that they have dropped out of school or never returned.
According to a survey by the Network of Street Children and Youth Educators (REEJER) in 2006, 13,877 children lived and worked on the streets of Kinshasa, mainly in the municipalities of Masina, Kimbanseke and Limete, today this number has multiplied considerably. The government's budget for education is very low, around 5%. Students are required to pay a quarterly fee, which is used to pay teachers' salaries and provide the school with everything it needs, from reams of paper to brooms. For this reason, families prefer to enroll their children in private or subsidized schools, but often their means are not sufficient to pay all school fees, and when an illness or bereavement occurs, children often stay at home and do not finish the scholastic year.
Project description
This project aims to help these children and adolescents, giving priority to girls, by paying the school fees and accompanying them in families. Parents, as far as possible, will be encouraged to buy uniforms and all school supplies.
When we help a girl or a boy to go to school, we help to train Congolese youth, because the school gives them the opportunity to form themselves not only as people, developing their intellectual abilities, but also by offering the opportunity, once they finish their studies, to get a good job.
Another important thing is that the school takes them off the street, and saves girls from early marriages or unplanned or unwanted pregnancies. A boy or girl who does not study does not have the opportunity to change his lifestyle and get out of the circle of great suffering and poverty.
Objectives
- To guarantee the right of to education to all children, boys and girls with a special attention to the girls.
- To reduce the tendency of children ending up in the streets, and girls becoming victims of prostitution, having unwanted or unplanned for pregnancies, and early marriages
- To contribute in the human and intellectual formation of a new generation who are the future of Congolese society.
Beneficiaries
Direct: 15 primary school children, 18 secondary school children and a university student
Indirect: families and society
Referent sister of the project: Sr. Amelia Pascoal Ferreira
Sorella referente sr Amelia Pascoal
Project's costs