Medecins Sans Frontiere or Doctors Without Borders joins our advocacy for livelihood activities to IDPs

Medecins Sans Frontiere (MSF) Doctors Without Borders joins our position to promote livelihood activities as solutions to IDPs around Goma and in North Kivu

Sponges which are produced by refugee women, these sponges are used for bathing and they are common here in Goma. Refugee women at our offices are producing the best quality of sponges and sometimes people come to look for them here at the offices.

In their recent report on sexual and Gender Based Violence which hit Internally Displaced Persons around Goma and in North Kivu, Doctors Without Borders knows as (MSF) also recommended the necessity to empower Internally Displaced Persons Economically through livelihood activities. We welcome such observations which we believe is part of the solutions to the humanitarian crisis in North Kivu but which is not yet the solution to the displacement.

The rain season is starting just in few weeks from now, and it will be so called, people are now looking for things that can resist to the coldness, refugee women are also making these types of Sweater which are of good quality and can resist to the weather here,

Here are also sweaters for children and students as the school is also starting in few weeks from now, these sweaters also of good quality. 

As you have observed, since April 2024 we embarked on the deteriorating situation of IDPs in Goma which gets worst every single day that passes. In our daily activities with IDPs we noticed the close relationship between vulnerability in camps and poverty, actually in terms of humanitarian interventions the biggest problem we should address is more about poverty among Internally Displaced Persons. However the proposed responses by humanitarian organizations does not focus of poverty reduction but rather prioritizes directly food distribution alongside other relief aid, which has kept people in a circle of poverty and destitution, yet they have opportunities to overcome.

We still believe that livelihood projects are the best approaches to address the current humanitarian crisis in DRC both focusing on refugees and Internally Displaced Persons in North Kivu in particular and in the whole country in general.

Here are still other skills refugees in Goma have developed and are now serving the communities where they live. MSF has become the first international humanitarian organization in North Kivu to support this position.