Survival and Healing Are Acts of Creation

Internally displaced people in Congo have no security. Many have been displaced several times by armed violence and they can only expect it to happen again. There is no safety – militia target civilians to get them out of the way and occupy their land. People gather in places where they can stay for a time and gather sticks and grass for shelter before another disturbance forces them to move on. When they eventually arrive at a “camp”, it’s usually an empty landscape. Numbness and despair are crippling, but few have the luxury of sitting around.

In Congo, surviving is an enormous act of creation.

Community activists in Congo understand this deeply, and many work with AGIR to engage people in the camps. They are young artists, musicians, and slam poets who lead sessions through animation and spoken word. They are also lawyers and journalists who are present in therapy groups and accompany the psychosocial assistants as they work. They are university students who sing with groups of children about vowels when the schools are closed because of the conflict.

The community activists are trained by AGIR and use their unique talents to lead regular sessions that use drama, music and games to let some light in and help people start to heal. And there is a fair amount of dancing.

These acts develop relationships of trust with and among the groups at the camps, who were mostly strangers and from different communities, languages, tribes, and clans before they came to Goma…the fact that these sophisticated young people are there and care for them makes a difference to people who’ve been treated as though they’re worthless and dispensable.

That is creation. These are the young people making a choice for the future of Congo.