The Kivu Assistance and Reintegration Centre
Goma, Nord-Kivu February 10th
One thing Bob Geldoff probably learned during his own development aid Odyssey is that no matter how slovenly or selfish someone might be in their normal life, there is nothing like being in front of very poor people, or real suffering, to shake them from sloth and sharpen the senses for moral acuteness.
It is 7AM at the Kivu Assistance and Reintegration Centre’s daily computer class and I am standing in front of 65 young people, half of them demobilised soldiers, and the rest a collection of Goma’s least desirable—mostly homeless youths in trouble with the law and who have been cast out by their families. Nearly a quarter of the class are young women, four of them demobilised soldiers, but mostly single Mothers in distress. Many of this group are known to live by thieving and this is generally how they are regarded in the community—as a nuisance and a danger. This may not be the lowest of the low but it must be pretty close.
Given this advance reputation I had prepared myself for something more boisterous but no, they are well behaved and very respectful, their chairs arranged neatly in rows for the class, which takes place in a ramshackle building which is a Church hall loaned to us, and by the Moonies, of all people. The classes take place at this early hour—6:30-8:00AM—as our volunteer teacher must then go to his day job, and anyway the Church needs the space for its own activities.
My talk is supposed to be motivational, kind of Tony Robbins in Africa—it’s within you to do it!—but I realise how inappropriate that is; they already have done it, survived incredible hardship. So instead I tell them that, and thank them for having me in their Centre as their guest, and congratulate them for doing what they are doing—enrolling in this class and doing what they can to get training and better themselves. They are smart and capable and to me, the most important people in the world right now.
Most are also enrolled in our language classes and, after the obligatory joke that they have Michael Jackson and David Beckham to help them learn English, I tell them that their country is slowly returning to peace and that they now have an important role to play in contributing to that, by gaining the skills to support themselves, reintegrate to their own communities and families and live in peace. The Kivu Assistance and Reintegration Centre will help to the degree we are able. This is a real, not abstract risk; many of the demobilised dream of giving up the hardships of street life and rejoining the militias or the armed bandit gangs that plague the province. Even some of our own students are known to have done so.
The closing remark—and believe it or not, it really did seem the most appropriate thing to say—was to quote John F. Kennedy’s “ask not what your country can do for you…”. For some reason when away from home, and particularly in Africa, the American cultural and historical canon seems a richer repertoire and trove of human experience to draw from than any other. It has a ready audience here. My audience today know President Kennedy, and nod in recognition at his mention. The American experience has resonance in the remotest corners of the world, and where I am now must count as that if any place does.
The questions, when they come, are polite, but practical. The first is whether we can get more and better computer equipment, saying that theoretical knowledge is fine, but they’d like to actually sit in front of one and use it. Today’s class is 65 kids in front of one lap top on a desk at the front of the room which the instructor is lecturing about.
The worst thing you can do as an aid worker when confronted with direct requests for assistance is to create expectations or make promises you cannot keep. But on this at least, I can give a positive answer; we’ve just bought 4 used desk tops—at $220 each, a steal in Goma—and will roll them out, and our 3 other computers, as soon as we can move to our new “computer lab” once the landlord has installed proper security. More generally, we are working on a plan to improve our teaching and other resources and they must be patient with us for now.
The next is from a demobilised soldier saying that he appreciates the assistance but has to walk 10km each way to get here from an outlying village, and that there are many others in his situation in that village, can we establish some satellite offices? This is at least an easy answer: we cannot. We don’t have the capacity for that kind of expansion, are a small local NGO trying to scale up and are barely meeting our commitments—which seem to keep growing—as it is .
Can we issue a certificate to prove that they took the course? Yes. Can we give everyone a job? No. The questions continue and, in one way or another, are plaintive but real expressions of need.
My closing comment, delivered with a rising lump in my throat, is that I will do all I can, to the greatest extent of my ability, to meet the needs mentioned.
Outside I turn to Ferdinand, who has been translating all of this from Swahili to English, and ask: “How are we going to do all this?” But he smiles his wise and kindly smile and says: “God will help us”.
God or a foreign donor. My next meeting today is with a large American NGO that has agreed to speak with us and look at the Project Document I’ve prepared. This is the first good news in 3 weeks of applications, dead ends, and emailed requests disappearing into remote or lengthy bureaucratic channels. Self-financing an NGO is an expensive business and I don’t know how much longer I—or my bank account—are going to last. My reply, as it is whenever Ferdinand says this to me, is that God helps those who help themselves.