CNS STORY: Ministries help people disabled in Congo violence regain independence

CONGO-DISABLED Dec-14-2009 (920 words) With photos. xxxi

Ministries help people disabled in Congo violence regain independence

By Mags Gargan
Catholic News Service

BUNIA, Democratic Republic of Congo (CNS) -- The attack came at night. One ethnic group against another. Twenty-eight-year-old Claudine Dhesi remembers hearing the gunshots as they whizzed by and the machete-wielding raiders flailing away at anyone in sight. One of them gashed her right leg.

"I was left for dead until the morning," she said.

Seriously wounded, Dhesi was slow to recover. She ended up losing her leg. That's when her troubles began.

"My husband abandoned me when they removed my leg," she recalled in an interview with Catholic News Service. "My brother-in-law took me in at first, then my cousin found me and took me in, but it was difficult for them to accept me because I could not contribute anything. They thought I was useless and I was neglected. So now I live with a friend and I am concentrating on tailoring, and making my independence."

Today, though, Dhesi is learning the craft of tailoring under Synergie Simama, a collection of religious and community groups that came together to serve people with disabilities sustained in ethnic fighting that long plagued the central African country.

Dhesi is among dozens of disabled people who are attempting to piece their lives back together now that the violence has subsided in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Yvonne Bura, a counselor with Synergie Simama, said that like many of the other women Dhesi is traumatized and feels she is no longer valued. The group works to improve the lives of disabled people by providing host of services including medical programs and organizing community members to help them understand the needs of traumatized people.

"What we find is that sometimes they have difficulty concentrating," Bura said. "They can sleep in class because they never sleep at night. When we approach the family to get more information sometimes we find serious problems at home.

"Many are abandoned by their husbands and some of them are sent by family members into town to beg for money. What we do here is useless if they are not taken care of at home," she continued. "We need to change the family's attitude to accept them and not to try and get something out of them.

"The best solution is to integrate them into the community. Through this training they can contribute to the family and the goal is for them to teach their new skills to at least one family member and through this process they learn to value themselves," she said.

In Bunia, the committee sponsors an association which offers counseling and training to women injured during the violence. The diocese provides the facilities for vocational training in tailoring, farming, embroidery and baking so the women can become financially independent.

In the town of Bogoro, the site of a massacre by the Ngiti and Lendu tribes in 2002 which left 200 dead, Synergie Simama funds a grass-roots employment training program run by members of the community.

Ngozi Monu, 18, was discovered in a displacement camp in the neighboring village of Vilo by a field team organized by the program. He lost both of his legs in 2007 when he stepped on a land mine. Until recently, he had been dependent on family and friends for support.

"I could not afford a wheelchair so I had to crawl around," Monu said. "Everyone neglected me, apart from my mother, and they looked down on me because I could do nothing for myself."

Last year when his village was attacked by a looting militia, Monu escaped only because his friends carried him to Vilo. Upon joining the project in Bogoro Monu's independence returned when he was given a tricycle wheelchair. He is being trained in welding and hopes to open his own business.

"Before I couldn't manage to survive on my own, I had no hope," he said. "Now through the training I am receiving here, I can finally be self-reliant."

Further south in the city of Goma, Jesuit Refugee Service has been working with the most vulnerable in camps for internally displaced people, meeting basic needs and offering income-generating education programs.

The coordinator, Jesuit Father Gerry Clarke, a native of Ireland, said his team's work goes beyond emergency relief. "The fruits of the work are getting to know people and sharing their warmth and their laughs," he said.

The camps in the eastern part of the country are closing now that security has been restored and the Jesuit Refugee Service is moving its operation south to Masisi, the area most of the internally displaced people call home.

Walking around what remains of the Goma camp, Father Clarke is followed by a group of inquisitive children. Some use crutches; others have their legs in braces. One young child has both his legs encased in plaster casts.

Father Clarke visits with people who live in plastic shacks built on a field of volcanic rock left by an eruption in 2002. He gives a bandage to an elderly woman who lost both legs to polio. A woman with a deformed arm, thanks to a gunshot wound, asks him for help with her leaky roof. Another woman who was sick with malaria seeks a blessing.

"This is what we do. We make friends with the vulnerable, accompany them, walk in their shoes, and have a presence here so that we can speak up for them," Father Clarke said. "People with no resources really have no chance here. They endure so much but they keep smiling, and they have an incredibly strong faith in God."

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