Humanitarian Relief

Humanitarian Aid Delivered by a Local NGO

In 2023 RYC received a grant from Global Giving, in coordination with Better for Business Society. Below is our report on the process we utilized for delivering the aid. This an area we hope to grow with future grants.

The location for the aid delivery was identified and recommended by our founder, Mr. Kamwendo, and it was agreed that the focus would be the Rusayo and Bulendo camps. The aid delivery process was broken down into the following 8 steps: 

Part 1 – Beneficiary Identification

With the escalation of violence, the number of people entering the refugee camps rapidly increased, making the selection of the 500 families/individuals to receive the emergency aid more challenging. The final decision was that the families selected would be based on the age of the head of the family (those that arrived with an elder member such as a grandparent), number of children the family head was responsible for, and where they came from originally. Special consideration was also given to unaccompanied children and youth. The original budget submitted to GlobalGiving included a line for hygiene kits as part of the aid package. However, during the identification process a meeting was held with several village chiefs that were now living in the camps, and the chiefs requested that the aid be adjusted to remove the hygiene kits and instead focus on food aid and critically needed tarpaulins. Why? Many families arrived in the camps with no form of shelter and were sleeping in the open environment, and the chiefs strongly believed that the top priority was providing shelter with the incoming rainy season. Working in collaboration is core to our mission and BBS felt it was important to listen to the input of the chiefs. In addition, another local group was providing the camps with soap and related items. Therefore, the aid that was delivered because of several adjustments increased from 500 to 574 direct beneficiaries and 3,839 indirect.

Part 2 - Confirm the Distribution Site

For the safety and security of the aid recipients and the RYC team, a secured distribution location outside of the camps was required for the distribution. The owners of the chosen location provided a large space along with the necessary security to ensure the safety of all individuals as well secured storage for the food aid and tarpaulins. The agreed upon rental price of $100 was increased by the owners to $200 with the rationale being there was more bulk items to be stored than they thought. This cost is noted in the budget versus actual portion of this report.

Part 3 - Market Search for the Best Prices

The DR Congo in 2023 as noted earlier, was impacted by severe inflation and shortages. Therefore, as part of the planning process, a team of five from RYC visited various markets and vendors to ensure they received the best prices possible for the dry goods based on volume. As an emphasis was also placed on quality of the products, by visiting the vendors the team was able to ensure that they received best price and quality that was available at market.

Part 4 - Purchasing Trips

A team of 10 volunteers spent a total of three days purchasing and transporting the dry goods and necessary equipment to the distribution site for packaging. All of the dry- goods were housed in a locked and secured building on the site ’ s and access was limited to only a few members of the RYC team for security and safety reasons. 

Part 5 - Create Aid Packages

Over two-days, RYC’ s team of volunteers worked together to measure the dry goods and create equal individual aid packs. The measurements were taken twice to ensure that everything was done as concise as possible.

Each emergency aid kit was comprised of:

• 10 kg of rice, 10 kg of corn flour, 10 kg of beans, 1.5 litres of cooking oil, 2 boxes of salt and 1 Tarpaulin 4x6 meters

All of the final aid packages were stored in the locked and secured storage area on the distribution site for the March 2nd distribution.

Part 6 - Meeting with Beneficiary Representatives

Before the March 2nd relief distribution, RYC conducted a meeting with a small representative gathering of the beneficiaries. RYC stressed the importance of this meeting to introduce the beneficiaries to Businessfor Better Society, GlobalGiving and the Hope is Crisis Fund.  According to RYC, it is a common practice in this region for people to receive small kits from local politicians. These “ gifts” are often tied to an upcoming election and an expectation regarding votes. Therefore, it was important to create full project transparency and introduce all the international parties involved. RYC noted that after making it clear to the beneficiaries who all the parties are and that there wasn ’t anything required from them, or a potential owing future debt, there was a sense of true gratitude for the support. BBS believes that this upfront meeting was an important step in also building trust with the communities for future projects. This meeting also represented the valuable input, and knowledge, that RYC brought to the project.

Part 7 - March 2 Distribution Day

RYC’ s team started the program at 5 am on March 2 to provide comfort from the extreme heat of the day and for the safety and security of the distribution process. Each family representative was registered after providing the necessary id and then signed the registration list to acknowledge receipt of the aid package. The distribution process was completed by 11:00 am.

Part 8 - Project Debriefing & Next Steps

On March 3 the RYC team and volunteers met for a debriefing. A few key learnings included:

1. Need to factor in price fluctuations in dry goods and especially as the demand for key items increases due to shortages.
2. The importance of the upfront meeting with the beneficiaries for complete transparency in the origins of any funding to create transparency and trust.
3. Listen and incorporate feedback to create a better experience for all.

It was during the March 2 distribution that RYC identified an urgent need among women and adolescent girls living in the camps, and that is the lack of sanitary hygiene pads. The decision was made, based on resources available (fabric, cotton, thread, etc.) and skill level of those in the sewing program, that a follow-up to March 2 would occur and focus on menstrual health and supplies. RYC’ s sewing program, which has benefitted from the additional machines through the Hope in Crisis Fund, would sew 4,000 hygiene reusable pads for 1,000 women, and these would be distributed as part of an awareness day. On April 29, 2023, RYC hosted a menstrual health day for 1,000 women which included women speakers who addressed a variety of issues including female health, proper use of the pads, as well as how to care for the pads.

Continue reading about our projects: sewing.