De-urbanization – Help for the Villages
According to a recent survey in the United Nations' annual Human Development Index, Congo DRC has the lowest living standard of 187 countries. Statistics are very hard to find here, but it is estimated that only around 60 % of the children go to school which parents have to pay for. 70 % of the people live in the undeveloped countryside, called the bush, with the most extreme poverty and illiteracy. Hardly anybody wants to go and help there because the situation and circumstances are so difficult. Most aid organizations work in and around Kinshasa or cities in the war-torn East. The rest of the country is pretty much left to itself. They lack basic infrastructure, like proper roads, which makes certain goods extremely expensive. One bag of cement in Kinshasa costs 14 $, in Tshikapa 39 $ and it still has to be transported to the village. One liter…
Bush Project Gets Rolling
Life in the bush is like another world: people there have no running water, no drinking water, no electricity, lots of sicknesses, as good as no medical system, terrible heat, deadly snakes, difficult "road" conditions and incredible poverty. Most people only eat once a day and that very basic. We spent two months in the bush in West Kasai, 1100 km South-West of Kinshasa near the Angolan border, researching the possibility of building a school in Mushapo, a village with ca. 2500 inhabitants and no school. It wasn't an easy decision but we committed to accept the challenge. Our friend Michel and his company partners from SADR have a large farm there and offered to assist us with the needed logistics in their camp: transport, room and board etc. Two brave volunteers from Germany, Jens and Melanie, came for almost two months and were a big help in many ways.…
10 Year Anniversary of Active Direct Help
10 years ago we founded a charitable association called Active Direct Help and since then are actively bringing help directly to where it is supposed to go. Here are a few highlights of our activities: 2000: We participated in free medical camps in Nigeria and shipped a container of humanitarian aid to Guinea which we distributed to the refugees of Sierra Leone and Liberia there, as well as to the neediest people in Conakry. 2001: We distributed corn to the most vulnerable people in East Zambia who had lost their crops in a flood and suffered hunger. 2002 - 2003: We shipped our next container to Cameroon and distributed the aid to different institutions in Douala and Yaoundé. We were also able to help the Pygmies who are slowly being forced to settle at the border of the rainforest which is being cut down and thus they are losing their…
ADH tries to counter the progressive urbanization in the Congo!
Our objective – to counter urbanization