Rainforest of Congo - A Rainforest Located To a LDC

The newspaper ‘GEA’ says that in Congo so far 6.000 people have died as a result of the latest breakout of the measles.

The German newspaper ‘Suedwestpresse’ now published an article about electric cars and why they might be not as great as most people think they are: For example 60% of the lithium needed in this production are from Congo where many workers do very hard, low-paid and dangerous work without any protection whatsoever to mine this substance. Burundi, Congo and Rwanda use the money they get for gold, coltan, tin and tungsten – as are bought by producers of electric cars – to pay for the arms they need for several conflicts within the country. Sure there are certificates and as off 2021 the EU is going to have a law according to which EU-enterprises must make sure that their minerals and metals come from certified mines. However it happens a lot that minerals and metals get smuggled from other mines to certified mines to make the latter look more profitable. These other mines however have questionable ways like hiring children, not protecting their workers from hazards in these mines or using methods that pollute the environment.

‘Suedwestpresse’ says that all in all the digital branch is growing in all of Africa – including even most least developed countries. Communication via electric devises and constant access to updated information via satellites becomes more and more important even in developing countries. The fact that satellites become smaller and thus cheaper also supports this development. Demand for robots and modern technology is growing in a more and more digitalized albeit still African world. Surprisingly plans to grow an aerospace industry in the South-East of Congo failed however despite this region having all the resource material needed for this project. Their only rocked base was abandoned already in the late 80s and never rebuilt again.

The Roman-Catholic German aid organization ‘missio’ now announced that as off this September the ‘Centre Olame’ in Bukavu/ Congo was going to be the central point of contact for so-called witch-children. You see in Congo there are people who would contact a non-Catholic priest or a shaman in case of tragedy or even just bad luck. Often the priest/ shaman then would see said happening as a sign of witchcraft. Often they even go so far as to accuse juvenile family members of being the witch. And people blindly follow everything these priests say. So the supposed ‘witch’ then gets locked away and can’t even leave the house to go to school anymore. Also practices to ‘weaken the magic abilities of the witch’ often are done either by a ‘wise’ family member’ or a priest. These involve depriving of food, wounding, burning (but not intending to kill the child by burning it) and some more methods of physical mistreatment. Especially the region of Kivu is known for these cruel practices.
Luckily as off September the ‘Centre Olame’ (phone: +243 854 733 095) is going to help. Starting with 40 children they will offer trauma therapy and schooling to these children. They will talk to the parents and other family members of these underage people and try to make them understand that what they do to these children is wrong.

The German newspaper ‘Suedwestpresse’ now did some advertising for the aid-organization ‘Hilfe für Menschen im Kongo e.V.’ and the work they do, like running an orphanage, a daycare center and a primary school in Kinshasa. They say that even with low amounts per donation money per donation plenty of projects could be fulfilled. The aid organization ‘Ray of Peace’ for example was able to build an entire hospital out of nothing in Maluku. The average amount of donation money was 20 €.