By David Tereshchuk*
April 28, 2015—Kasungami settlement, in southeast Democratic Republic of the Congo, is home to displaced people who have fled conflict further north. The United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) is working with a local partner there to help residents transform their refuge into a healthy and productive home.
Three-quarters of Kasungami’s households make their living by cultivating small parcels of land. Few of them, though, are self-sufficient in food. More than half the population is under the age of 15.
On average, people eat one meal a day or less. Families are vulnerable to food shortages, unbalanced nutrition, erratic supplies and poor quality in food. Some 42 percent of residents are stunted in height and 25 percent are underweight. Kwashiorkor (protein deficiency) is prevalent and severe, especially among children.
Child Action Initiative (CAI), a Congolese organization founded in 2006, initially focused its efforts on meeting educational needs of young people in Kasungami.
Today, with additional support from UMCOR, CAI also is working to improve children’s access to food, safe drinking water and medical assistance.
Need for balanced diet
For children, there is a full program of school lunches, along with classroom-based aid such as learning materials, subsidies for school fees and free shoes for students. For adults, there is intensive training in integrated crop management and cultivation of the versatile Moringa tree, all to promote food security and sustainability.
The program emphasizes the importance of a balanced diet and of ensuring the availability of vegetables and protein-high soybean, all treated as they grow with organic pesticides.
Alice Mar, UMCOR manager for Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security, values UMCOR’s partnership with CAI. It’s an example, she said, “of how we can strengthen the capacity of local organizations to implement impactful programming, firmly within the population’s own cultural, environmental and social contexts.”
Livelihoods support
The community is also learning the most advantageous ways to benefit from any surplus food crops they harvest.
New efforts are under way to help farmers assess market opportunities and to establish community-based food-processing operations to prepare processed foods with the greatest market potential.
CAI already has helped farmers set up links with local markets and developed more efficient ways of getting the food to market.
“We are excited to support CAI’s efforts to implement the strategies and best practices that the community has learned with UMCOR’s help,” said Mar.
Your gift to Advance #982920, for food security, will help Kasungami and other communities around the world ensure better nutrition and more reliable food supplies for their families.
- David Tereshchuk is a journalist and media critic who contributes regularly to UMCOR.org