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Democratic Republic of Congo

War, hunger and disease have killed nearly four million people in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the last seven years. One in every five children dies before reaching their fifth birthday.

We’re helping 94,628 children get a better education
We’re protecting 51,545 vulnerable children from harm and exploitation
We’ve helped vaccinate 14,603 children against measles
We’ve helped 5,159 malnourished children

Save the Children in the DRC

We started work in the DRC in 1994, helping children who had fled the genocide in neighbouring Rwanda. Since the war, we’ve helped reunite thousands of children with their families. Working with local and international partners, we’re getting children back to school, providing them with healthcare, and protecting them from exploitation and abuse.

In the east, more than one million internally displaced people still need help to meet their basic needs. The fighting has destroyed the economy and infrastructure, as well as the social fabric of families and communities.

We’re helping children affected by conflict

International law forbids the recruitment and use of children in armed conflict, but hundreds of Congolese children are still being used as soldiers, messengers, cooks or ‘wives’, who are often brutally sexually abused.

We’re protecting children by tracing members of their family and reuniting them where possible, as well as helping former child soldiers return to their families, receive catch-up education and learn skills to help them earn a living.

We’re also continuing our advocacy work to prevent children being recruited or re-recruited by armed forces.

We’re helping children get a quality education

Nearly half of all school-age children don’t go to school, mainly because their parents can’t afford the fees and because children often need to work to support their families. Many schools were damaged or destroyed in the fighting and many others are in a poor condition due to lack of resources. Teachers are poorly trained and low paid, and the curriculum is irrelevant to many children’s lives.

In 2008, our education work reached more than 80,000 children in 200 schools. We’ve helped 10,310 children go to school for the first time, including 4,938 children who have returned to formal education through our accelerated learning programme (ALP) classes, which help them reach the educational standards they need to return to school with children of their own age.

We’re saving children’s lives

Many children in the DRC die from preventable diseases. Malaria is the leading cause of death in children under five. People have to pay for healthcare, and most simply can’t afford it.

In 2008, we reached 51,280 children through our health programmes and we’re helping the provincial health system in North Kivu to provide people with basic primary healthcare services such as child immunisation, nutritional support, family planning and information on how to prevent HIV.

We’re also improving people’s health by supporting health posts and hospitals. We helped the Ministry of Health to vaccinate 14,603 children against measles at the height of the emergency in October/November 2008. We opened three units for intensive care treating severely malnourished children in the hospitals in Katwa, Musienene and Lubero.