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Appui

Women empowerment in the Katanga province

 

Active in the city of Lubumbashi and its suburbs, the APPUI-Congo - Action participative pour un Progrès unifié and intégré en République démocratique du Congo (Participative action for unified and integrated progress in the Democratic Republic of Congo) - combats the extreme precariousness of women and young ladies through a training programme to encourage autonomy called Washawasha. 

Objectives

Founded in 2009 by Suzanne Sekanabo, APPUI-Congo stimulates community development in Katanga, by encouraging the emergence of active women’s groups that are self-managed and focused on opening businesses.

Amongst other initiatives, APPUI-Congo runs an emancipation programme, Washawasha, which directly implements a mechanism that helps facilitate savings and credit, and organises ongoing education on numerous societal, economic and environmental themes. Poor women and young ladies are brought together in groups to learn how to read and write, manage a community chest and start small commercial initiatives, either individually or collectively. The participants are trained in the essential aspects of associative life, law, women’s health, micro-financing and the preservation of the environment. This is to arm them against illness and violence, and help them start an activity that generates revenue. This aims at enabling a first financial balance and the acquisition of a degree of autonomy.

Results

Since APPUI-Congo was launched in 2009, more than 1 700 women have come together in 75 self-managed groups, and have accumulated savings of roughly 100 000 dollars.

More than 500 women have been trained to manage a revenue-generating activity (RGA) and are regularly monitored by APPUI-Congo staff. This has multiplied the number of new projects and achievements, such as the production of batik loincloths, the sale of fresh fish, chicken rearing and the production of fruit juice. Since mid-2013, one of the groups has been managing a fountain stand installed with the help of a subsidy from the Rotary Club to complement the financial contribution of the women. 

For the first time in 2013, APPUI-Congo organised a dozen or so groups made up only of young ladies between the ages of 12 and 18, some of whom are child mothers. They come from very precarious neighbourhoods of Lubumbashi and face specific difficulties of their age and the deficiencies of their parents, such as dropping out of school, illiteracy, but also ignorance of basic health and personal hygiene. So APPUI-Congo developed special training that focuses on practical skills, but also a series of training with a professional angle. Notably, the young ladies are taken on as apprentice seamstresses to customize bags and shoes. The idea is that they can, like their elders in APPUI-Congo, start revenue generating activities. 

Our support

Since signing the partnership agreement with Appui-Congo in October 2009, we have provided subsidies to enable the investments necessary for its launch. We have primarily provided management advice to its president, Suzanne Sekanabo and we have also put the organisation in contact with other organisations and people who have contributed to the development of Appui-Congo.

APPUI-Congo positions itself as a model for the groups of women that the association accompanies. Its own micro-enterprise, Mam'Africa, acts as a motor for the development of new skills.

 

Support Appui!

Contact

Suzanne Sekanabo

Founder and Chairwoman of Appui Congo
suzanne@appuicongo.org

www.appuicongo.org

© 2008 Fondation Marie & Alain Philippson, Fondation d'Utilité Publique | Réalisé par Glucône