Irish-British Province

KINSHASA/DR CONGO
The Daily struggle of ORPER

In his recent Christmas letter the director described the activities and plans of ORPER. Many are the struggles they go through as the letter describes:

“For several years is ORPER looking for new ways to reach more street children, who cannot or do not want to live in their homes. The two existing centers are not accessible to all the street children of the large city.

One such plan was to start an “open house” in the city center, where many such children live. Since a suitable place could not be found the idea of a mobile centre took shape.

Instead of the children coming to a center, we planned to go to the children where they lived. A mini bus was used for the purpose. This project started in 2005 and we were able to reach children in several quarters. Both boys and girls are helped with this project.

Our aim is to provide these children with at least the minimum protection during the night and to lessen the abuse of these children. We explain to them the dangers of certain bad habits, provide first aid or take more serious cases to the hospital.

“Usually we go out three times a week with an old vehicle, which was provided by ‘Medicines Sans Frontier’. MSF also gave us some essential medicines.

The CRS (Catholic relief services) and UNICEF have agreed to finance a new vehicle. We have to work out the problems at the customs to get exemption from import duty.

“A first goal of our work is the reintegration of the children into their families or in some employment. By October this year, we were able to help 115 children return to their families.

For the first time we helped children from outside Kinshasa, from the provinces of Equateur, East Kasai and Katanga re-unite with their families. The flight tickets for these children and their escorts were paid by MONUC, the UN mission in Congo.

“In July-August 377 street children participated in the holiday programmes organized by ORPER. 30 children from the homes for street children, run by the sisters of Mother Teresa of Calcutta and the Passionist Sisters, also participated in this program.

This year the joy of the holiday was overcast by an accident. One of the girls got drowned while bathing. Although the girl was already four years on the streets, her family was found soon.

ORPER was taken to court, which set two charges against us: abduction of the child and intentional drowning, and demanded a compensation of US$ 500,000. The sum was then reduced to just $ 1,000.

We told the judge that the appropriate punishment for the crime was to put the guilty in prison and not to make ORPER pay the compensation. Finally, the ministry of social welfare intervened, and the case was laid to rest.”

Source: Arnoldus Nota