Vera Schaffer
Program Manager DR Congo
â–º E-mail
Project Number: 197.1210
This project is committed to protecting street children in the Ngaliema slum in Kinshasa. Accojed's activities focus on counseling and psychosocial support for children and adolescents living in the streets, so that they can find stability and break behavior patterns marked by violence. When possible, reintegration into the original family or placement in host families is sought. Stable and sustainable prospects for the future are created through formal schooling and other forms of informal vocational training, as well as through leisure activities.
The number of street children in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, is estimated at 30,000 to 70,000. About 40 percent of them are girls. Their living conditions are extreme in every respect: they live under constant threat and try to survive through odd jobs, theft, drug dealing or prostitution. The background of the phenomenon of street children is complex. Some have run away from home because they hoped for opportunities and income in the big city. Others have lost their families, who themselves were displaced in the war. Or they were abandoned by their parents because they could no longer feed them. The state offers hardly any help and usually only intervenes by violently fighting the "kuluna," the so-called youth gangs that recruit street children and threaten entire neighborhoods.
Street children in the slum of Ngaliema (a neighborhood in the city of Kinshasa) find help and can participate in a reintegration program. This improves their chances of being (re)accepted by society and their families. The project focuses particularly on education and vocational training, which open up future prospects for the children and young people and offer them the possibility of a job. Psychological counseling accompanies all other project activities to ensure that the children and young people receive support and guidance.
The target group includes the street children in the slum of Ngaliema. They are children and young people up to the age of 18 who have lost their families or have been rejected by them and have ended up on the streets.
Care for 240 children and adolescents per year:
Reintegration into the school system and support for vocational training:
55 young adults (25 of them women) were trained in 2022 in tailoring, information technology, carpentry, driving, pottery and electrics. In addition, the continuing education centers were supplied with materials and equipment.
200 parents of street children were made aware of their responsibility as parents of difficult-to-educate children through the project theater.
95 children and teenagers participated in the sports and employment activities such as karate, football and theater.
CHF 32'200
Mission 21
Protestant Mission Basel
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Donation account Switzerland:
IBAN: CH58 0900 0000 4072 6233 2
Tax exemption number:
CHE-105.706.527
Donation account Germany:
Savings Bank Lörrach-Rheinfelden
Swift BIC: SKLODE66
BLZ: 683 500 48
IBAN: DE39 6835 0048 0001 0323 33
Account No. : 1032333