While searching for your ideal New Braunfels Getaway, take a moment to learn about what good things are happening in the Congo!

Medical Students’ Aid Project www.msap.unsw.edu.au
CNEC Partners International www.cnecpi.com.au
Hope International www.hopeinternational.org
Congo Canoe Challenge www.everydayhero.com.au/congo_canoe_challenge
UPC www.upc-rdc.cd
FLO - link to HandUp Congo site
NALB www.upCongo.org
*******************************************************************
Good news from Africa! A report from Susan Phillips’ sisters!
Capacity building in Congo...from pink canoes to dynamic women entrepreneurs
One...no, two babies are born in a canoe under the eyes of HandUp Congo’s co-founders, sisters Anne Zolnor and Lucy Hobgood-Brown. The mother made every effort to reach the regional hospital in the remote village of Lotumbe, but gave birth lying in a canoe on the riverbank. Sadly, one infant died.
“We were awed by this young mother’s stoicism,” says Lucy, a community development consultant. “Like so many Congolese women, she rallied in the face of extraordinarily harsh conditions.”
This incident is just one of many illustrating the resilience of Congolese women, adds Anne, a nurse and health care consultant. “We love collaborating with FLO, the grassroots women’s organization based in Lotumbe. Their members are dynamos, initiating all sorts of capacity building projects that positively engage and impact the entire community.”
As 2008 came to a close, Anne and Lucy visited HandUp Congo’s projects in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Their focus was on l’Université Protestante au Congo (UPC) in the capital, Kinshasa, and a remote village in Equatorial Province, where their father was born and where the sisters had lived as children.
Along with Chantal Bolingo and Rev. Antoinette Mapele, they embarked in a hot pink dugout canoe on a 17-hour adventure along three mighty rivers. The Congo Canoe Challenge raised essential funds to buy medical equipment for the regional hospital in the village of Lotumbe.
“We didn’t expect to travel in a pink canoe,” says Anne, “but thanks to Australian partners Australian Ethical Investment (AEI) and the Medical Students’ Aid Project (MSAP), we found it waiting for us in the provincial capital.” Their substantial grant made it possible for HandUp Congo’s grassroots village partners to purchase a canoe that is now a floating community store. “They are savvy businesswomen and they want river communities to recognize this floating community store,” explains Lucy. “What may be the only pink canoe in Africa is getting a wonderfully warm reception!”
“Most of the country’s roads are no longer accessible, so the rivers are Congo’s superhighways,” Anne points out. “That’s why this pink canoe has another important mandate: to educate villagers about malaria prevention and the vital role that insecticide-treated mosquito nets can play.”
FLO, the Congolese women’s NGO that partners with HandUp Congo and the Medical Students’ Aid Project at the University of New Wales (Australia), can now provide malaria prevention educational resources along with other household staples.
Traveling with Anne and Lucy were their husbands, Ali and Kevin, as well as engineer Ernie Ross and his cousin, marketing specialist Linda James. Linda is also a Director of HandUp Congo.
A childhood buddy who had also lived in Lotumbe, Ernie had not been back for more than 25 years. Ernie, Ali and Kevin put their combined engineering, architectural and construction skills to good use while at the village, and teamed with local Congolese leaders to assess infrastructure priorities in the lead up to Lotumbe’s Centenary in 2010.
On her first visit to Congo, Linda James learned that the churches are among the very few organizations in Congo that work to provide healthcare and education, while the government does very little to provide these basic services. “Whether at the local or national level, churches may be the only ones providing some broad based infrastructure,” Linda says. She and Ernie, who also visited technical schools in Kinshasa, were impressed by the commitment shown by some to train Congolese youth. “I wish that this type of investment was more broadly evident in other schools and infrastructure.”
Education that builds a nation
The pink canoe continued to create a sensation as it carried the group back to the provincial capital of Mbandaka (it only took 12 hours this time, thanks to currents!), where they flew back to Kinshasa. There they led workshops and evaluated a variety of donor-driven projects on UPC’s campus, including medical school scholarships facilitated by CNEC Partners International and UPC’s North American Liaison Bureau (NALB), and medical school textbooks and microscopes donated by the Medical Students’ Aid Project.
The student body of more than 6000 is gearing up for the university’s 50th anniversary, to be celebrated in November 2009. HandUp Congo is working closely with UPC to maximize awareness of this occasion.
Merci mingi (“thanks so much” in a Congolese dialect) for your support!
A more detailed report is available on HandUp Congo’s website (go to www.handupcongo.org). We look forward to hearing feedback, and we welcome any suggestions that you may have for potential partners that can help FLO or UPC in Congo.
Please write to us at info@handupcongo.org.

Information for donors

NORTH AMERICA

HandUp Congo receives 501(c)(3) status through our fiscal agent in the US: A World Institute for Sustainable Humanity — Federal Tax ID: #91-1712077.

Donate online by dedicating your tax-deductible gift on the A W.I.S.H. site to HandUp Congo. Or, send checks payable to A W.I.S.H., noting in the memo line that your gift is for HandUp Congo to:

Anne Zolnor
HandUp Congo
215 S. Ocean Grande Dr. #303
Ponte Vedra Beach, FL 32082
USA

US donors: If you do not need a tax deduction, you can send your check payable to HandUp Congo to Anne at the above address. This will provide an additional 10% toward projects in Lotumbe!

HandUp Congo, Inc., was established in 2005 and incorporated as a nonprofit in 2006 in the state of California in the USA. We receive our 501(c)(3) status through our fiscal agent in the US: A World Institute for Sustainable Humanity — Federal Tax ID: #91-1712077.