Latest News Bulletin – Goma has been over run by M23 rebels. Schools are closed down, food and water are in short supply and people are being killed or injured by the fighting. Claudaline has had to close Hope School and is fleeing the country for safety. Please consider signing this petition to call for a ceasefire. https://chng.it/q6Gry2HcYt via Change.Org UK division.
As a member of King’s Church Southampton we have over the years developed a friendship with the late Bishop Désiré and his wife Claudaline who lived in Goma a city in the East of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This amazing couple established several projects to help the vulnerable, especially women and children, under the umbrella of their charity ASDIC (Action Salutaire pour le Department Integral de Congo – ASDICo) started in 2007. They run vocational courses having trained hundreds of women in tailoring and provide micro-finance and agricultural projects largely based in Kalehe to provide opportunities for women to be financially independent.
They also started a school, Hope school in the Keshero region of Goma. The school was started when Claudaline asked a little boy sitting on the side of the road what he was going to do when he grew up, he answered – “shoot people and rape women!” I think you will agree this is tragic especially as children are the principal hope for change in Congo. I believe that the children of Hope School having an opportunity for education, knowing what it is to experience success and tasting something of what it means to be loved and valued could be significant catalysts for change.
The school started with 270 children mostly traumatised by war, being either orphans, born out of rape or children from displaced people groups. Now with about 350 the support has led to some of the best results in Goma and one of the best football teams! We took out Saints kits and sent boots kindly donated by Southampton FC. They are probably the only team playing in professional boots, perhaps an unfair advantage?
The School has been massively improved. The latest block to be built is shown below.
A portion of the profits from my art sales go to support Hope School helping to pay teachers salaries and for educational supplies all under the monitoring of World In Need International a UK charity.