In April, our 35 children and young people would have been prohibited from sitting their examinations, without your help. If they didn't do the exams, they couldn't progress to the next class without repeating the last.This would have been a great humiliation and frustration to the youngsters who have already experienced so much heartbreak and hardship. SBV strives to pay the whole cost of the children's education and usually manages to make it. Sad to say, we failed to reach our goal this year, due to the passing of two of our staunchest donors, and increased rents reducing the income from our chicken farm. We are delighted to announce that all of the children will be able to continue their studies due to timely and generous gifts from Esperantists and members of the Sapphire Coast Anglican Parish in Australia. The children are holding up personal messages of thanks- next time we must get them fatter crayons or something, but you get the message anyway - THANKYOU!!! Profound thanks, Alexis, Alphonse the whole SBV team | Thanks to Freya Vos, Penny Vos, Roger Hill, Hazel Green, Dawn Hollins, Joan Williams, Carol Bartlett, Bruce Crisp, Robyn Paingakulam, Shanne Fanning and Matthew Fanning. |
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Education is the most important objective so that peace, democracy, justice, responsible leadership can become part of the culture in our society.
While we were recording this statement of our vision for SOLIDARITY GOODWILL, we were listening to Barack OMABA’S re-election speech on OKAPI RADIO, “Radio for Peace Restoration in DRC”. In the transmission “Inter Congolese dialogue” we were surprised to hear Professor CIBANGU KALALA say, “ There is no political will about democratic principles or human rights, and education for peace in the DRC. It has never been a Congolese legislator's concern nor reflected in the policies of the country in contrast to the USA where democracy, respect of human rights and peace has become a culture…” The professors only hope, sadly lacking in confidence, was that the government may implement a project to create institutions whose the only mission would be the promotion at all levels of peace education, democracy and the respect for human rights. In this way, professors in law have reassured us that our vision is clear and made us even more convinced of the necessity for our project in our country. If we can attract the sufficient international support for our projects, we will together establish a solid foundation and model for our country. Future generations will be grateful to read and learn that, thanks to your support, respect of human rights and a good sense of responsible leadership have become part of the culture in our province and in our country. Our firms, work shops and schools will contribute to the socio-economic development of our town, and our society. We will add education courses for peace, leadership, human rights and spirituality. We may be able to open a book store containing different books on such themes which will help our pupils and students but also citizen people of our town and province who will be interested in it. The lessons of spirituality learnt in our centers of training and schools will soothe the conflicts troubling the minds of our people living in Goma. They have suffered terribly and are very much in need of care and peace and something to believe in. We hope to develop a community where all understand that we are here to teach and learn from each other and have confidence that our community will grow and strengthen and improve in this way. We will share our hope and it will grow. Eventually, we may be able to support all these projects with television and radio station broadcasts about peace, human rights, principles of democracy and leadership Such television and radio would be a great innovation in our town of Goma and would contribute the implementation of democracy, the respect of human rights, and leadership even in DR Congo in general. Generations later, our implementation of education about peace, human rights, leadership and in our school and training centers will have produced a new youth, new families and a new environment which will make a new image of our community, our region and our country. “Losing either one’s father or mother doesn’t mean to be orphan but we are all orphans if we lose hope”. |
AuthorAlphonse WASEKA, ArchivesCategories |