“Encourage Mothers” is our new program under Rudi International!

31 mothers attended our 4 meetings held so far. Each week, the meeting is taking place on Saturday between 8 to 9am. They are conducted by Mama Jeanet and held in the Lac Vert community either in a local church where we have been generously given space or at one of the women’s place when there is a service in that church.

In our last newsletter (need a pdf copy in your email box? Let us know), we announced the launch of our new program, “Encourage Mothers” which aims to work with the mothers in the Lac Vert area to help them become good mothers for their families through conversations. They are affected by war, are living in poor conditions and since have been traumatized by all that. In the initial phase, the meetings focuses on healing conversations and we have seen great changes happen on their faces, how they can easily smile and call each other by name.

On the first meeting (Nov 11^th, 2013), Arsene Tungali introduced Mama Jeanet to the women as their new friend and briefly talked about the new program, then gave the flow to Mama Jeanet.  She then introduced the program “Empower” which consists of giving an opportunity to everyone to speak about anything that is deep in his heart. Those are stories, most of the times bad stories, that everyone has passed through and that are remaining as wounds in their lives. Per the 4 meetings already done, everyone spoke about her terrible story and after that felt comforted and released.

“These women really needed such a space of conversation, unique in the area. They had their hearts full of trauma stories, bad memories and this is actually a danger because they won’t have any positive talks with their kids unless they have had an opportunity to talk and to get their trauma healed. In my group, I hear stories and stories and after each one of the women have spoken, we heal each other by providing some advices. We also use the word of God and have other strong words from strong women and this have shown a positive result on them”, Mama Jeanet shared in one her reports to Rudi.

They agreed to observe and keep confidentiality.

No one is allowed to divulgate the story shared by another one. This climate of confidence helps them to freely express their selves and feel better. Some rendezvous failed because either Mama Jeanet had no money for transport (as she is coming from Goma to Lac Vert, 10kms away) or she is out of the town for business or international conferences. When Rudi was able to support with few money, she found that the women came at the meeting place but were disappointed because she was absent. This shows that they are really interested in that program and want the meetings to be held very often. We need your financial support. Would You Donate here!

We started this program without initial funding and we are keeping it up only by faith and our motivation comes from the courage and interest our beneficiaries’ manifests. Arsene commented: “We couldn’t stay untouched after working two years in the community with the kids and left behind their mothers. To build a bright future for the children in Lac Vert, we need to touch their mothers as well”. We hope to have your support so we can move on next steps towards our trauma healing program. Mama Jeanet has strong experience on this matter and we are proud to be working with her. For this initial phase of the Empower program, we just need money for her transport.

Look, not enough money actually. From Goma to Lac Vert and back to Goma, she needs about 5$ if she takes a motorbike. That makes about 20$ per month to be able to meet the women 4 times a month, to have transformational conversations. Be part of this and donate whatever you can.

There are stories that are coming out from their meetings, we cannot share all of them. Here is one of the stories that Jeanet wanted us to share: “My 3 kids got poisoned. I witnessed them all dying one after another because we had no money for hospital at the right time. What I remember is that my husband got very angry and rude on me and as I had no force to handle this, I lost intelligence…”, shared Mama Chantal and it seems not be enough for her, the hardest part of the story is this as she continues “I don’t remember what comes next but when I was awake, I found myself naked, in a bush so far from my house. I was frightened and when I went back home, my husband told me that I am no longer welcomed home pretending that I killed his sons (my own sons!). He chased me and I am alone here in Lac Vert after I left Masisi where I was with my family. I haven’t seen him again and heard that he got married to another wife.”

Mama Jeanet shares that, after this story was told in the group, everyone felt in tears and all of them got the courage to talk about their own stories because they saw the courage of their colleague. At our program, we believe in the power of a story shared in a group to release someone from his loneliness.

Be part of this. Help us build strong mothers in the community, free of trauma. In the coming months, we will go into the next phase of the program which will consist of designing some activities that can help the women generate some incomes. You can start investing in our program as for this phase, we will need some more money to be able to handle this.

We want to have a STRONG WOMAN to champion this program ad be our fundraiser. Are you that woman? Do you care about women? About the Congo? Join us today!