Relief Aid to IDPs in Inkwe Village-Maluku by a groug of young people together with NGOs COJESKI, AFLA and RIJDD

Challenging the existing culture of indifference towards those suffering especially Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the Democratic Republic of Congo among others

The Coordinator of RIJDD Mirianne talking to IDPs and host community on issues about pacific cohabitation and peaceful resolution of conflicts.

This story is spoken: One day a heavy wind hit a village and destroyed the Lake which had a lot of Fishes, fishing on this Lake was the only livelihood activity of the people in that very village. After the heavy wind, a young man who lived on fishing came and saw how the Lake was destroyed and all the Fishes were on a dry land dying one by one. He started crying because he felt life for him was over and many people in the village will suffer and also die of hunger including his family. Later one an old man passed by and started picking one fish then the other and put them back to water, then the young man told him, old man do not waste your time, there is nothing you can do here, you cannot save all these Fishes because they are dying now, so the old man said, yes you are right, I’m not trying to save all the Fishes, but I’m trying to save some Fishes which will after years multiply and become a livelihood activity for the future generation. That is exactly our deep conviction.

We cannot save more than 10 million IDPs in without aid in DRC currently but we can save some who will multiply in the future and rebuild this nation, we are not aiming at solving their entire problems but we are solving some problems so that the IDPs can have space to focus on other problems, we shall not help them forever but we are pushing them ahead in order to come across other people who can support, we are prolonging their lives so that they can innovate and find more better options.

Eight Young people came together and contributed things to help IDPs in Inkwe Village Maluku on Sunday October 19^th, 2026, they were joined by three organizations mainly COJESKI, AFLA and RIJDD

Joyceline from COJESKI and Martine from AFLA distributing Seeds and Watering Can for Agriculture activities in order to boos IDPs livelihood activities.

Among these young people four are girls and four are boys, highly motivated to lead the nation in actions of solidarity towards those in need.

A new wave of young people seems to take the lead in order to challenge our indifference against those fellow Congolese in difficult situations especially Internally Displaced Persons. On Sunday October 18^th, 2026 a group of young people mobilized themselves from Kinshasa, put their money and other things together and decided to go and donate to IDPs in Maluku who fled the tribal armed group of Mobondo in Kwamouth. These IDPs are living in dire conditions and despite being closer to the capital city they remain ignored and languish in their destitution alone.

We do not know the real motive of these young people in order to venture in this humanitarian gesture, and we did not want even to know because this was for us already exceptional and unique in order to challenge what we used to believe that humanitarian aid can only come from Europ and America. This was for us a lesson that committed citizens can really drive the change and engaged citizens can take the lead to shape the future of nation, and this is what these young people are doing. Deep in their minds they had more reasons why they should help contrary to many other people who have reasons why they should not help and contribute to better lives of people in need.

We believe these will reduce some problems connected to irrigation especially during this period of Climate Change consequences affecting local communities.

COJESKI-DRC is thankful and proud of these 8 young people both boys and girls who took this direction which the country needs most in order to claim back our value of solidarity and Christianity. Again sometimes we do not know really the impact of what we donate, however it is important to keep asking ourselves one question “what could the situation be if we had not been there, and if we did not help?”. Do we intend to solve people’s problems, No, but we want to contribute to the solutions and motivate people to keep pushing for durable solutions. We may not save all people in need but still we cannot fail to save at least one person.

These young people are not organized in an Association however they share the same convictions of helping those in need and as they prepared also organizations like COJESKI, AFLA and RIJDD joined in order to make the intervention wonderful and great to the IDPs.

Contributions

Some of the relief aid which was donated to IDPs and the host communities in Inkwe Village, this was very moment of relief from the IDPs, who will forget some of their problems for a while from yesterday, this will help them to focus on other things.

The relief aid comprised of Maize Flour, Rice, Sugar, Salt, nutritious Porridge, Soap, Seeds for Agriculture, watering can, Clothes, Shoes for both children and adults, drinking cups, pads for women and school materials for children.

The activity started by a briefing for RIJDD on pacific cohabitation among IDPs themselves and with the host communities, but also encouraged IDPs to get involved in Agriculture in order to restore back their dignity and reduce poverty. The second activity was to listen to IDPs in order to get their views, some said they are not yet ready to go back to their original villages because of what they lived in the past, others indicated need to have a permanent settlement where they can start rebuilding their lives from and others indicated about Income Generating Activities.

People also from the host communities who came, indicated how they shared all they had with IDPs when they came and had nothing but now IDPs are getting relief aid yet nothing is given to the host communities which was the very humanitarian actors and who are living in the almost very same situation like IDPs. In response the leader of the IDPs informed us that generally they always share with the host community but things are given to the village chief is expected to call the people and give them these things, however the village chief does not do so and eats the things alone.

These women are some among the host communities who raised issues on how they are excluded from the relief aid yet they shared what they had with IDPs. We also had time to engage, we listened and encourage the communities to share what it is available, in Africa it is about sharing the little we have.

The last activity was to share Porridge among children in order to encourage the community to fight against malnutrition among children. We cooked Porridge and distribute to each children with a Cake and Bread, for some children this was a surprise because they had taken long without taking Porridge and drinking something which has sugar.

Kulihoshi M Pecos, the National team Leader of COJESKI-DRC distributing Porridge to children and IDP women who are affected by malnutrition.

As we organized to return back this woman said “my children, thank you so much for coming, I do not know how to thank you but may God bless. Since yesterday I have not yet eaten anything with my three children, I was shaking when I was cooking Porridge because of hunger, now today my children will eat, they have taken Porridge and eat Cake, I’m so happy, you have saved me today”.

Conclusion

We observed that it is important to also focus on the host community in the same village, to call upon the Government to allocate land for all IDPs, and to involve IDPs in livelihood activities. A priority should also be placed in education and access to health facilities for them.