- Support the international campaign to end harmful cultural practices that ignore the human rights of orphans, widows, and elderly people and lead to their dire poverty and social exclusion.
- Raise awareness and understanding of the discrimination and violence encountered by widows, orphans, and elderly people in many countries.
- Continue to advocate for widows’, orphans’, and elders’ rights to be integrated into the human rights agendas of national and international agencies.
Since December 2022, our organization (MSF) has been working in partnership with Local community organisations such as Orphelinat La Mission de Dieu based in Av. Du Commerce No.29 Commune of Ngaliema in Kinshasa city of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
IN THE DRC (overseas programme)
Mamy Show Foundation supports the Orphelinat Mission Dorcas (OMD) for children in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo. The orphanage provides a loving home and family for children victims of poverty, AIDS and violence within the DRC. With access to a good diet, health care and, most importantly, education, the children grow up with the support and confidence they need to take control of their future.
Mamy Show Foundation (MSF) has been involved with ‘Orphelinat Mission Dorcas (OMD) in Kinshasa’ for over one year. Thanks to the support of generous donors over this time, we have seen much progress in education, clean water, beds to sleep in, better nutrition and transportation to school. We have also seen an impact on the community around the orphanage as they shared from the container sent in June 2022 – clothing, food, medical, hand tools, and more.
The children are currently housed in a rental house in Kinshasa. When the rent is paid every six months, there is much tension as the landlord may find a higher offer and decide not to renew the contract. The challenge is – what to do with 38 children if the landlord changes his mind?
The organization has reached over 100 young widows in the Kinshasa area of DRC through the micro-finance scheme of a women revolving fund project that provides capacity building in business and financial management. Thus, the organization offers micro-loans to young women as they build their skills to scale up the business at the end of six months of the project.
Why D R Congo?
In July 2022, a delegation from MSF visited the D R Congo, where armed conflict, malaria and the AIDS epidemic have left victims of all ages. Hundreds and hundreds of children and women have been orphaned and widowed.
The visit to DRC started with an e-mail of an orphanage Director (Orphelinat Mission Dorcas in Kinshasa) to a friend in the UK, telling the story of 38 orphans being taken care of by the orphanage and the difficulties faced by residents in terms of poor logistic, infrastructure and welfare due to lack of funding.
The visit to DRC in July 2022 was then organised in the framework of exchange of experience North-South evidencing the caring for orphans, widows and the less privileged. Country selection criteria were based on lived experience by the visiting team who, while originally from the region, have also acquired a wealth of experience while working with the less privileged population during their 20 years of life in the UK.
In fact, the Democratic Republic of Congo is one of the poorest and most dangerous places to live due to a long history of conflict, political upheaval and instability, and authoritarian rule, which have led to a grave, ongoing humanitarian crisis. In addition, there has been forced displacement of populations. It ranks 164 out of 174 countries on the 2020 Human Capital Index, reflecting decades of conflict, fragility, and constraining development. There is no social safety net. The widows and orphans are the poorest of the poor.
On their way back to the UK, the delegation brought the idea of care for the orphans, widows, the less privileged and the aged as tried and tested in Kinshasa in response to their lived experience abroad. Trustees of MSF felt they had to duplicate similar projects by launching in the UK a support network under the name of ‘Mamy Show Foundation’, which will have a mission to care for orphans, widows and the less privileged. The new philanthropy would bring hope, not only to today but to the future needy orphans, widows, widowers and vulnerable populations from our local community in the Black Country and Birmingham in the UK and abroad in the D R Congo.
Selected services/activities in Kinshasa, DRC are:
- Providing care and protection for suspects in police custody/prison inmates, free food, water, medical, toiletries and air fresheners for the less privileged suspects/inmates.
- Visiting the less privileged, the aged, the widows and orphans in inner cities and rural communities, providing them with free food, water, food items, clothes, medical and financial support, as the case may be.
- Providing support for the less privileged and orphans towards educational fees and materials.
- We provide microfinance, revolving agricultural loans, small-scale commercial activities, and entrepreneurial and business acquisition skills training.
- Providing retirement homes for care and protection as well as for the destitute.
Our Working Strategy in DRC
- We provide training around social and moral values, skills optimisation to enhance the care given and proper management of resources.
- Mamy Show Foundation works with local partners to save lives, prevent crime, reduce suffering, and mitigate human rights abuse, drug abuse, cultism, and child trafficking.
- We are committed to providing immediate life-saving essentials such as food, water, medical, toiletries and shelter, especially for the less privileged, aged, widows and orphans in rural areas and cities.
- MSF continues to empower released inmates with trade and jobs to ensure they don’t go back to crime.
- We also organise crusades, seminars, workshops, advocacy initiatives programmes and conferences where issues that will enhance godliness, peace, love and harmony are discussed.
- We are committed to visiting the suspects in police custody and prison inmates, providing them with food, water, medical, detergents, soap, air fresheners and toiletries, counselling and reorientation programmes.
- We also visit schools to pay fees and give educational materials to the less privileged and orphans who cannot meet their bills/expenses.
- We use prints and electronic media to foster social welfare services in society and collaborate with relevant government agencies, NGOs, other local organisations, traditional rulers and the general public to achieve our aims and objectives.
- We are a volunteer-run UK charity, allowing us to forward 97% of the funds donated. We have selected an orphanage in Kinshasa, DR Congo (Orphelinat Mission Dorcas in Kinshasa) that is very efficiently run, where only a small portion of the funds are allocated for staff living expenses. The majority of the funds they receive go to help the orphans. Additional support for the staff (primarily unpaid volunteers) is self-raised.
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