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Halving Poverty for and with Congolese Children

Welcome to CENFACS’ Online Diary!

29 January 2020

 

Post No. 128

 

 

The Week’s Contents

 

• Halving Poverty for and with the Educationally Needy Congolese Children

• Making Wasteful Consumption our Mission

• Donor and Stewardship Development

 

… and much more!

 

 

Key Messages

 

~ Halving Poverty for and with the Educationally Needy Congolese Children

 

In this 2020, children in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) continue to suffer the draconian effects of austerity and structural adjustment policies of the 1980s, the long DRC post-cold wars and mismanagement of previous administrations.  Since last year, DRC moved into liberal democratic transition processes. 

However, the benefits of these processes are taking time to materialise in the educational lives of ordinary Congolese children, let alone other sectors of the economy.  Schools and ordinary parents are still struggling to make educational ends meet.  There is a need to help ordinary Congolese people to help themselves in reducing or halving educational poverty. 

CENFACS would like to work with those who would like to halve poverty by supporting ordinary Congolese children to meet their educational needs.   

Under the Main Development section of this post, you will find some details about halving poverty for and with the educationally needy Congolese children.

 

 

~ Making Wasteful Consumption our Mission

 

Our month of Responsible Consumption will end this week.  We cannot end it without reflecting to it the theme of this year’s dedication, our Mission Year.  In particular, how can we work together with people living in poverty to embrace together a poverty-relieving mission in helping themselves in consuming responsibly? 

We can do it by working together with them to understand that poverty reduction goes hand in hand with responsible consumption.  By using the theme of this year’s edition of CENFACS’ Consume to Reduce Poverty and Climate Change; we can together build on our Mission.  We can build it through the reduction of negative wasteful and unneeded consumption. 

People can eliminate negative waste in their ways of consuming goods and services while doing something positive to save the environment and reduce the adverse impacts of climate change (or their carbon print).  It is in this way we can make wasteful consumption our mission; that is working together to develop ways of reducing consumption that creates and sustains negative waste for humans and the nature.   We can together save resources and create peace with the nature and everything in it.

To enquire and support the CENFACS’ Mission Year and this particular mission, please contact CENFACS.

 

 

 

~ Donor and Stewardship Development

 

Last year, we introduced and made solicitation to some of you as donors and /or stewards of poverty relief, particularly those who wanted to build bond and loyalty to CENFACS and CENFACS’ work.  It was an opportunity given to those who wanted to engage and develop their interests in CENFACS’ work.

As a result, we created a donor status to enable those who want to commit themselves on regular basis to giving or boosting their status as donor to have the opportunity to do so.

This year, we are moving towards the same direction by developing what we created last year and in inviting those who want to commit themselves as funder or donor to do so.    You can do it by supporting CENFACS with a silver donation, a great relief and a product booster.

 

=> Free for Supporters: Silver Status

 

Silver status is the legacy of CENFACS’ “Quadranscentennial” Year (2019).  Support our projects as you can or as you choose if you visit them or if you happen to be within the area of them. This will boost your support and help you to win a silver status as CENFACS’ Supporter in a CENFACS Mission Year.  Alternatively, you can fund CENFACS’ Mission year to win the same status and continue CENFACS’ legacy.

 

=> Want to provide Great Relief as a Supporter

 

You can provide great relief by becoming a regular giver or supporter, adding value to you support and boosting your support.

Please contact CENFACS for details about becoming great reliever.

 

=> Need to boost your support or stewardship

 

You can choose a particular sustainable initiative or programme or even CENFACS as your boost product.

You can support 3 projects or 2 projects and CENFACS

You can support 3 programmes or 2 programmes and CENFACS.

This will elevate your position as a project or programme funder or a product booster

For further details about boosting your support or stewardship, please contact CENFACS.

 

 

Extra Messages

 

~  In-depth Review of 2019 Light Appeals/Projects

 

This week, we are also conducting an in-depth review of 2019 Light Appeals or projects.  We have already done the annual review of 2019.  In our annual review, we briefly included some of the appeals we made in 2019 including Light Appeals.

The current review is different in its aim, scope and scale as it is in depth and detailed.  It is designed to evaluate the effectiveness of our Light Appeals in terms of what changes happened since we launched these appeals.  Changes may have happened in those countries and peoples on whose behalf we made an appeal.

If changes happened, we should not always say because of our appeal.  Likewise, if they did not happen we should not simply argue that our appeal did not change anything.  We should instead find out what progress has been made on the grounds regarding the previous situations and how we could still help and move things forward.

In this respect, the in-depth review is meant to provide us some credible information and data about the gaps that needed to be filled up or unmet needs that require further advocacy.

To enquire and or support us in this review, please contact CENFACS.

 

 

 

 

~ Gifts of Peace, Edition 2019-2020: Ends 31 January 2020

 

Gifts of Peace for Edition 2019-2020 are coming to an end this Friday.  If you have not yet supported, there is still two days to go.  You can still do something for poverty relief.  Every support counts to help reduce and end poverty.  You want to support, just contact CENFACS or go to http://cenfacs.org.uk/supporting-us/ .

 

 

 

~ 2020 All Year Round Projects: Play, Run and Vote for Poverty Relief and Sustainable Development

 

CENFACS’ Triple Value Initiatives, the All Year Round Projects, are now back for this year.  You can play, run and vote to reduce poverty this year again.

The 2020 Edition of All-year Round Projects has kicked off.

You can Run or Organise a Run Activity to Reduce Poverty in 2020. 

You can Play the CENFACS League for Poverty Relief.

You can Vote your 2020 African Poverty Relief Manager.

Before proceeding with one of the All Year Round Projects, it is good to speak to CENFACS.  We can discuss together you plan or the way you want to participate.

 

=> How CENFACS can help you to engage with Triple Value Initiatives

 

The following examples show what we can discuss together before you start.

 

Example 1: Run Themes

For example, let’s take Run to Reduce Poverty.  There are Run Themes.  You can Run alone or Run as group or even Run for fun.  You can do Seasonal Run or Run to raise money or even Run to raise awareness.

There are ways of making your Run event simpler.  To do that, you can contact CENFACS before you plan your event.  CENFACS can help you to select your theme.  You need to confirm the date and time with CENFACS.

There are other things to consider as well such as: location, engagement in activities, prizes (rewards for participants), health and safety issues, child protection policy if children are involved, insurance cover, etc.

 

Example 2: Play station Game

Let’s take another example: Playing CENFACS’ League for Poverty Relief

You can create your own play station game with CENFACS’ League and run your own tournament and matches.  You can even involve colleagues, friends and families sharing the same passion about how the selected African countries are working to reduce poverty.  You can group or rate these countries according to poverty reduction performance (showing which one comes on top, middle and bottom).  You can as well use game theories.

 

Example 3: People to Watch

Let’s take the last example: Voting your Poverty Relief Manager

You can create your own list of 20 Top People to Watch throughout the year.  One or two of them will be potentially the best managers of 2020.  You can collect data and facts about, follow their annual performance and vote the best at the end.

After running or organising a run activity, playing the CENFACS’ League and voting your Manager of the Year 2020; we would like you to share with us and others your news, events, experiences, stories and reports regarding these projects.  The end product of your share will be a kind of Action-Results report 2020.

 

=> What we would like to hear at the end of this process

 

We would like to hear from you the following three bests

The Best African Countries of 2020 which will best reduce poverty

The Best African Global Games Runners of 2020

The Best African Development Managers of 2020

The deadline to tell us your bests is 23 December 2020.

 

As we progress throughout the year, further information will be released for CENFACS’ Triple Value Initiatives.

For more information about these projects, please contact CENFACS.

 

 

Main Development 

 

Halving Poverty for and with the Educationally Needy Congolese Children

 

In the years 1980s, draconian austerity measures were imposed on the DRC by international financial institutions to put back its economy on track.   In order to reduce public spending to comply with structural adjustment policies, there were budget cuts.  In those cuts, some sectors were targeted such as health, education, transport, etc.  

These measures were followed by three decades of economic and political instability characterised by one of the longest African wars (two waves of wars in DRC where many foreign armies were involved) and processes of democratic transition.  These processes led to presidential and parliamentary elections last year.  The newly elected administration has reinstated free primary education for all the Congolese children.  

Although primary education is now free, the new administration has not got the resources to pay for its policy as the Congolese State was impoverished.  The dividends of democratic transition are taking time to materialise and bring expected benefits to the primary education of Congolese children.  Yet, there are acute and urgent needs to be fulfilled and educational requests to be responded.  There are data that tell the story of Congolese children.  There are as well results or outcomes that are expected for any support given. 

The following summarises those data, request, use and outcomes that briefly make the case for halving poverty for and with the educationally needy Congolese children.

 

Basic data for primary education in DRC

It is difficult to get a considerable and accurate amount of data about primary education in DRC.  The data we have used refer to only part of the DRC.  Research from the United Nations Children’s Fund (1) found that attendance in early childhood education is still low in DRC and children have less learning material (such as books) at home. 

According to the United Nations Development Programme (2), inequality in education was 28.5% (p. 311) in 2018 in DRC, while the mean years of schooling making the gender development index was 5.3 years for female and 8.4 years for male for the same year (p. 314)

In its Global Education Monitoring Report 2019, the UNESCO (3), argues that in terms of education opportunities the Gender Parity Index in gross enrolment rate was 0.99 in DRC in primary while Gender Parity Index in completion rate in primary was 0.88 still in DRC.

(1) https://www.unicef.org/media/63016/file/SOWC-2019.pdf

(2) United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2019: Beyond Income, beyond average, beyond today: Inequalities in human development in the 21st Century, New York, USA

(3) United Nations Educational, Science and Cultural Organisation, Global Education Monitoring Report 2019

 

The needs

Although the new administration has made primary education free, there is still a gigantesque challenge to meet primary educational needs, which are as follows:

<> Extra 4 million children joined primary education since September 2019

<> Almost 200,000 teachers are unpaid and some of them had to walk 4 km from their homes to their work places to teach as they do not have money to pay for the local motorcycle taxi to carry them

<> In a class of 50 pupils, children share 2 books only to read amongst them

<> In some classes, half of the children are following lessons standing up

<> There are lacks of benches, desks, school supplies, cabinets for books, etc.

<> Besides these lacks, there are as well problems with sanitation and health facilities in some of the schools.

 

The request

CENFACS is asking to those who can to donate whatever they can to help HALVE POVERTY FOR AND WITH THE EDUCATIONALLY NEEDY CONGOLESE CHILDREN.  Any support will be welcome. 

Your support will help to reduce child poverty, assist early childhood development and fill the gaps in education funding needs of children in democratic transitions like the DRC.

Many thanks!

 

The use and beneficiaries

Your support will help

√ To buy educational books for children

√ To build new classes and increase absorption capacity of schools to cope with the high number of children who are standing to follow lessons

√ To support unpaid teachers

√ To cut down the ratio teacher/pupils, which is about 1 to 50 in many classes

√ To equip deprived primary schools

√ Where appropriate, to introduce digital learning facilities to cope with this huge educational demand and market, etc.

 

The outcomes

One can hope that the following results will be achieved through their giving:

√ Reduction of educational books shortage

√ Reduction of the ratio teacher to pupils from (1 to 50) to (1 to 25)

√ Doubling of literacy and numeracy skills amongst children

√ Introduction of digital learning skills

√ Improvement of working conditions for teachers and support staff

√ Halving the number of children following lessons standing up

 

To enquire and or support CENFACS’ Halving Poverty for and with Educationally Needy Congolese children, please contact CENFACS.   Thank you!

 

Help CENFACS keep the Poverty Relief work going in 2020.

We do our work on a very small budget and on a voluntary basis.  Making a donation will show us you value our work and support CENFACS’ work, which is currently offered as a free service. 

One could consider a recurring donation to CENFACS as a New Year’s resolution.

Donate to support CENFACS!

 

FOR ONLY £1, YOU CAN SUPPORT CENFACS AND CENFACS’ PROJECTS, JUST GO TO http://cenfacs.org.uk/supporting-us/

Thank you for visiting CENFACS website and reading this post.

Thank you as well to those who made or make comments about our weekly posts.

We look forward to receiving your regular visits and continuing support in the New Year and New Decade as well.

With many thanks.

 

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