Butoke
update, Dec. 28, 2008
December 25, 2008:
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
It is Christmas and
above all, we wish you and your family peace and good health and a constant
awareness of God‘s love. Having enough resources to be assured of survival is
the constant prayer of most Congolese.
Please let us pray with them for “daily bread.”
Both Dr. Jean and I
have been very much involved with the potential Ebola epidemic. You may
remember there was a confirmed epidemic of Ebola from April to October, 2007.
This time the index case happened 17 November and since then there have been 33
new cases with 9 deaths. It has found
the Ministry of Health unprepared; WHO without stock; even UNICEF with limited
supplies. So we have tried to stop gaps at least temporarily hoping that within
1 or 2 weeks everyone will be ready.
Local labs seem incapable of diagnosing what the exact diagnostic is.
The different bureaucracies seem ill prepared to react rationally and timely on
a deadly disease without name. Butoke
continues to serve as memory of last year’s experience, to reinforce planning
capacity and prime the pump by putting transfusion equipment at disposal, and
by providing essential drugs in a quantity sufficient for about 10-16 days. We
pray everyone wakes up fully to the urgency to help the people stop the
epidemic before more die unnecessarily.
We have had two rites
of passage within our programmatic activities; one for education and one for the
protection of human rights.
ü
Education, after many hesitations has a
coordinator, Soeur Henriette, who has a double masters in Education and
Psychology and teaches Psychology at the undergraduate level. Again, with great
difficulty, she identified two inspectors of primary schools, willing and able
to conceive manuals for teachers of first and second grade about how to teach
oral French, quantitative skills and peace to children 6-9 years old. The manuals have been written and produced
and 10 schools of the Commune Nganza in and around Tshikaji have been identified and asked to send the
teachers for a 10 day workshop on this. The workshop started with a pretest on
which the teachers on the average scored only 2.5 out of 10. This is worse than
expected but has reinforced the will to make a double effort, so we will
prolong the workshop for three days during which the teachers will restate what
they learned to their own group and the directors of the 10 schools.
The goal beyond improving the
quality of teaching in the selected schools which teach more than 250 orphans
we sponsor is to challenge other schools and the inspectors to use the same
manuals and similarly improve teaching.
ü
Regarding our work on protection of human
rights we have had a hard time constituting a team and choosing strategy and
tactics, but we are happy to report we seem to have finally come to the point
where we have decided to defend the rights of women, children and persons
living with a handicap. The team grew and selected itself through months of
tackling individual cases. The team has
now about 7 men and 4 women under the leadership of Rev. Lazare Tshibuabua. Five of the men are clergy of different
historical churches. As legal counsel
we have David Kampagnaya. Dr Jean
Lumbala and myself will continue to serve as primary sources of care in cases
of physical harm. We have a blind,
highly motivated, well-educated man, Gregoire Kazadi, taking part. The women are a nurse and a nurse teacher,
an ex-nun agronomist and an undergraduate law student.
The team has decided to go very public through
fora with church leadership of all denominations and radio broadcasts . We want
to actively encourage denunciation of cases as one means of
conscientisation. Given local customs
and practices, this is harder than it may seem to foreigners. Victims tend to be denigrated locally,
especially victims of sexual aggression.
The first forum will be held on 29th December with the
leadership of women’s associations in the churches, youth associations and men’s associations first in Kananga 2
and soon also in other neighborhoods of
Kananga and Luiza. These fora will be
accompanied by radio broadcasts based on case studies.
The first case we will use happened
recently. A young woman born blind, had
refused sexual contact with two men.
Days before they had attacked her in broad daylight and torn off her
clothes. Some friendly people had
taken her home. At 9pm on 21st she was
alone on the street and was savagely beaten by the same two men. She needed medical care after the beating. Even though she cried for help no one came
to her rescue. Handicapped women are
often abused sexually and or beaten.
The hope is that we can stem an epidemic of violence, rape, based on a
lack of recognition that women, handicapped and children have rights.
Our activities in
agriculture, nutrition, water and sanitation, and health are in full swing. You
may remember that locally September thru December is considered the season of
witches probably because of the high mortality. Many adults and even many more
children die from malnutrition and anemia combined with malaria. Daily we
receive new cases and have had to hospitalize at IMCK 2-3 cases for
transfusion. They arrive often with only 3 gr percent hemoglobin (normal is 15
gr percent, 10 gr percent is the limit between normal and anemia). One can but
wonder how these kids can cling to life.
I just received an
urgent phone call from a colleague in UNICEF:
the epidemic of Ebola is confirmed and we are asked to collaborate
further in stemming the tide.
I leave you
temporarily. God bless and protect you.
December 28, 2008:
It is Sunday and Dr.
Jean and two nurses, Andre and Francois, are on their way to the epicenter of
Ebola in Kampungu and Kaluamba, to organize the psychosocial support of the
victims and their families. In fact, this was never taken care of during the
first epidemic and about 400 orphans have been left drifting out of school and
often homeless. Our team will try to identify the old cases and the new ones as
well as identify their needs and whatever local system of care that might
exist.
At 75 km from Kananga
they found on the road 3 kids (5, 6 and 13 years old) walking alone, orphans
seeking to join their family 100km away, all three with kwashiorkor. They are now with our team who will try to
unite them with their family if possible at least for the time they will need
to spend in the epicenter. But the
region is amongst the poorest, so Dr. Jean will leave a supply of milk hoping
the milk will be reserved for the kids.
We can but try within a very difficult context, with God’s help. If the children are still alive and not yet
recovered when Dr Jean returns, he will bring them to Tshikaji for refeeding
and possible settling down.
We wish you a Happy
New Year
Rev. Lazare Tshibuabua, Dr. Jean Lumbala and
Dr. Cecile De Sweemer
Contributions to Butoke in Canada can be sent through Réal Lavergne,
Canadian International Development Agency, 200 Promenade du Portage, Gatineau,
Quebec, Canada, K1A 0G4. Contributions in the USA can be made payable
to H. Branch Warfield, 13801 York Rd., V-3, Cockeysville, MD, 21030 marked “for
Butoke” or to Maryland Presbyterian Church, 1105 Providence Rd., Baltimore,
MD 21286, USA, also marked “for
Butoke.” Contributions to Maryland PC
for Butoke may be tax deductible in the USA. Contributions in the UK can be
sent through Paul Evans, 5 Westville Ave., Ilkley, LS29 9AH, United Kingdom.
Please note: All contributions
to Butoke which come through Cecile DeSweemer’s United States checking account
are acknowledged individually by Branch and Dickens Warfield at the time they
are sent to Cecile in the Congo. We
also inform her of each donor’s contribution, so she is well aware of the generosity
of so many of you. She cannot acknowledge
all gifts herself, since, as she put it in a recent email, she works from 5
a.m. to 8 p.m. daily. The Warfields are
hoping to assumer this task for her.
Cecile feels grateful and blessed by all of your gifts.