Hand Up Congo throughout the Year.
Lucy Hobgood-Brown
Lucy Hobgood-Brown regularly takes volunteer teams to this province, to work with Congolese colleagues on such projects as sustainable beekeeping, women’s health, duck and fruit tree planting (sales from the eggs and fruit pay for Pygmy orphans’ school tuition), and women’s micro credit. Lucy Hobgood-Brown also introduced Days for Girls in the Democratic Republic of Congo areas where she works. Pictured is a Congolese community leader introducing Days for Girls and women’s health/family planning topics to school girls.
Celebrating 15 years of collaboration in CongoOn March 15, 2020 HandUp Congo hosted a party for Sydney supporters to celebrate 15 years of community development collaboration in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Many Rotary clubs, individuals and businesses have helped bring positive change in a country that is at the bottom of the UN Human Development Index. The event featured African dance, drumming, food and handicrafts. Congolese project partners sent heart-warming messages of thanks to Australian supporters, and a service of thanksgiving was held in Congolese churches for the many overseas project partners who have provided in-kind resources, funds and professional development training.
Dr Germain Wassia, medical director for Lotumbe Reference Hospital (a project partner of HandUp Congo), holds a banner commemorating 15 years of collaboration.
Fighting Covid19 in Congo In collaboration with HandUp Congo, a Rotarian doctor who is medical coordinator for a community of more than 1 million people, is leading a Covid19 awareness campaign. Dr Bosolo Yoursen and a team of healthcare workers in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s most marginalised province, Equateur, are using traditional dugout canoes, motorcycles and bicycles to access remote villages, due to lack of infrastructure. These hamlets are located in the Congo Basin, the world’s second largest rainforest after the Amazon. HandUp Congo is a small, Australia-based non-profit with long-time ties to the Congo. Founder Lucy Hobgood-Brown is a member of the Rotary eClub of Greater Sydney. For information: www.handupcongo.org or email handupcongo@gmail.com. Dr Bosolo is president of the Rotary Ekanga Mbandaka Club in Mbandaka, Equateur Province
When you are desperate, anything that can cover your mouth is considered by the Congolese.
Single mums enrolled in a sewing project are making face masks for their community.
Emergency Medicine is evolving as a medical discipline the DRC
CPR mannequins supplied by Australia are used in the WHO’s Basic Emergency Care training workshop held in tandem with the first national DRC Emergency Medicine Symposium.
Since 2015, HandUp Congo has helped introduce a new medical discipline in a country with more than 80 million people. Led by Australian Emergency Medicine Specialist, Dr Vera Sistenich, the Building a Healthy Congo initiative has trained more than 600 doctors and nurses in basic emergency care. In the past year, the new discipline’s impact on saving lives has led to the establishment of the DRC’s Emergency Medicine Association (www.amurdc.com). In collaboration with HandUp Congo, the World Health Organisation, the African Federation for Emergency Medicine and Rotary, the first national Emergency Medicine Symposium was held in November 2019 and attracted more than 300 healthcare workers from Congo and abroad. Thanks to Medical Aid for Oceania and Rotary Berrima District for funding and organising an air freight shipment of 12 cartons (284 kg) of medical equipment. Ongoing professional development workshops are being held and plans are underway for another symposium in 2021.
This has been a busy year for the Lotumbe community in Equateur Province. Located 300 km from the provincial capital, Lotumbe (“Low-toom-bee”) is home to more than 3000 people scattered in hamlets in the world’s second largest rainforest. The village has partnered with HandUp Congo on a range of sustainable community development projects for 15 years. The community’s elected development facilitator is Rev. John Entonto. He liaises with a Development Committee, and the projects they oversee include bee keeping, microcredit, duck raising, sewing (including making face masks to help prevent the spread of Covid19), and education for orphans. HandUp Congo supporters provided funding this year for three development leaders to visit projects in NE Congo, where they learned how to make eco-friendly cooking stoves – essential to a geographic region that is rapidly becoming deforested -- and explored microcredit models.
In addition, generous donors provided funding this year for the refurbishment of a community development office, a dugout canoe and Yamaha motor for use by the Community Development team, agricultural tools for Indigenous Pygmies, and seed money for women’s micro enterprises, medicines for a free Health Clinic and funds to build a simple house for the local hospital’s new Chief of Staff. A portable sawmill has also recently been established, which the community hopes can become a key income generating social enterprise.
The Ambulance Boat is perched on 3 dugout canoes, tethered together and driven by 2 outboard motors. This boat carries small healthcare teams far and wide to riverside hamlets over a huge distance, raising awareness about Covid19 prevention and distributing face masks, soap and medicines.