DRC Realities Projects

From the Community Partners Perspective

Social Skits’ Drugs and Alcohol

Service-Learning project partners were asked about the impact of students. Denis coordinates a soccer program for youth in the community. UCBC students brought a sketch about drug and alcohol abuse to perform for the youth on the soccer team. Though they are very young, they seemed to understand the message. Denis said, “after the sketch about alcohol and drug my team members understood that they should beware of keeping company with people of bad character, lest they fall into such evil doing.”

Denis is one of the rare people who are very concerned about the youth. During this time, he is thinking about the types of projects that could be helpful in the future. “It could be very helpful to teach these children how to have a healthy lifestyle so as to avoid some diseases that they can be contaminated with, due to their poor hygiene. Actually, they easily spend three days without taking a bath. In addition, we should encourage them to study. This is what I always do when I am with them, but we need to emphasize it more. Most importantly we need to keep them busy in activities such as sports. Otherwise they are just exposed to drugs and alcohol. 

Furthermore, we need to spend time with them and hear from them,” he said.

Denis and his team spent a good time with the UCBC students in this SL project.  He is ready to work with UCBC students doing

Service-Learning again. 

“SL helped me a lot. We received a soccer ball

from Service-Learning to further support our athletic programs. Moreover, we are encouraged in what we are doing thanks to SL. Every time the SL Coordinator takes pictures and shows them to the soccer players they are very motivated,” says Denis.

Alain is another young SL project partner who is running an association of people from the age of eighteen to thirty-five years old. Their aim is to assist one another, specifically in difficult times through donations and counseling.  They also saw a sketch about drug and alcohol abuse performed by another group of UCBC students.

“After the sketch, my team members understood that there is a way to change their behavior. They also understood the disadvantages of drugs and alcohol,” Alain said.

Alain is younger than some of his team members, yet his plan is to educate them. He says, “In the future we are planning to educate youth through meaningful movies, but we don’t have the tools to do it yet.”

 He would like to work with UCBC students doing SL again because with such projects there is a glimmer of hope for the Congolese youth.

Social Project 

Increasing Public Awareness Against Corruption

Being transformed to transform,this is the motos of UCBC. In DRC realities

class students discuss with Dr David Kasali about various challenges to development that can be

changed into opportunities for development. Early this year they raised some social and eduacational issues, among others. Corruption is one challenge to development in Congolese education.

These students went to Bungulu high school  to convey their message in the form of a sketch (skit or small play).

 

The audiance watched with much interest no matter how sunny the day was. Within fourty minutes, two different groups presented about corruption in education and its consequences. At the end of their presentation, they interructed with Bungulu's puplis where Francine, a student at Bungulu said," One does corruption because he wants to get something that he does not deserve. When a student is lazy, he does not study hard or take alcool during school time he can easily fall into corruption."

Communication seemed to be effective. Many students from Bungulu understood the outcomes of corruption, especially now that they will sit for exams. Styve said,"What is bad about corruption is the fact that we can have a  whole generation that has only diplomas ,but it not skilled."Others raised the fact that we can corrupt local teachers then at the end of the day we dont receive a diploma because the state exams are corrected in Kinshasa,the capital of DRC.

After this sharing, the coordinator or Service-Learning at UCBC thanked all the students who presented a sketch and asked for their suggestions then they "called it a day". 

Health Project

Talking With Women About Typhoid

A group of students went to meet with some women, who were either admitted or taking care of their relatives at CBK hospital. They targeted women, specially  those at hospital for purpose. All over the world one can hardly deny that educating a woman educates a whole nation.They decided to talk about typhoid at the hospital because, sadly, they observed that nurses and doctors are occupied with treating the effects of this disease, but do not tell their patients about its roots.

Typhoid can develop into fatal bacterial infection of the digestive

system, caused by ingesting food or water contaminated with the bacillus Salmonella typhi; It causes fever, severe abdominal pain, and sometimes intestinal bleeding. Typhoid is a serious disease; still, it can be prevented through a safe environment, proper diet, and clean water to name a few as suggested by these students.

    PIKO, one of the UCBC students who was present, felt satisfied with

the Service-Learning initiative. He said, "We find out what are the real

problems in society and together with the population we find out a

way to solve them."

However, they know that a lot is still to be done since they

have only reached one hospital. They are looking for ways to meeting with

many other women from different neighbourhoods in Beni, since women are carrying the next generation of

 Congo.

 

Economics Project

 Efata Deaf School

    First year students went to Oicha (30 km away from Beni) to find out what challenges pupils at Efata deaf school face. From the first trip, they figured out that this deaf school encounters various problems. Deaf children or any other disabled children are victims of discrimination in their families and society. Often parents prioritize hearing children above their deaf children. Often in families deaf students school fees are paid last. Children come from far to attend Efata which creates transportation costs or stress on a family. At Efata this creates a scarcity of resources: teachers are hardly ever paid,  and lack teaching materials; however, the headmaster is doing everything possible to run this school.     The UCBC students responded immediately to the challenges they observed.    Within a week, they raised funds from within the UCBC community. They collected 135$ that they gave to deaf school's board members. The students gave funds as capital for a soap-making project. UCBC students wanted to support an activity that was an established area of expertise. Previously, the students and staff at Efata had conducted projects in soap making and agriculture. So they chose the soap project. Now soap profits will be used to finance an agricultural project and help to pay teachers.

  

The long term aspiration for these students is to help them find partners who can assist ever so little to revive this school. Their dream is to see a day where deaf children will have access to as high-quality education as any other hearing child.