Uvira Territory is located in South Kivu province East of Democratic Republic of Congo. The main activities are agriculture and animal keeping. Their agriculture is majorly subsistence.80% of the population in DRC is unemployed and jobless making life very difficult. Women carry loads of goods on their backs for many kilometres so they can get even a dollar to buy food. Many young girls do extensively hard work to earn a living. All this makes people in DRC to suffer a lot especially children and women. These problems have come about as a result of war that claimed many many lives, at least more than 6 million. Many women and girls were raped, and many children remained orphans.
Despite all these problems, Congolese are very hardworking people, they like developing their villages and promoting peace in their area. They have forgotten the bitter experiences and are focusing into the future.
In bringing a solution to this, Dr. Luc Mulimbalimba had to move from Kenya to DRC to his village called Luvungi so he may start medical and community Development activities for the sake of alleviating poverty in Uvira Territory. When he arrived in Luvungi with his family, he had no possession except for clothes. Together with his wife Delice Marango Mulimbalimba they were able to purchase land and started developing it for community activities.
Arriving in his village Luvungi, the first night Luc Mulimbalimba spent in this village more than 10 children died of malaria, pneumonia, and other diseases. Several women died for lack of medical care. This problem has greatly affected him, he decided to resign from his job to come and work and save the lives of his brothers and sisters of Luvungi Village and Uvira Territory.
After a long research, Luc Mulimbalimba found that more than 80% of the population of Uvira listen to the radio, unfortunately the population of Luvungi listen to the radio of Burundi and Rwanda which speak another language than ours. But also, it spread the message of the war. All this had pushed Luc and the MHCD Mission to create the Radio Impact
Impact radio has started preaching the good news of our Lord Jesus Christ to the population, broadcasting Christian music, the message of peace and reconciliation, the message of health in order to fight against diseases and the message of unity and solidarity. Every Saturday the population gathers to come and do the community development work. Through this program initiated by Impact radio they managed to make bricks and building the General Hospital of Luvungi, which is a missionary and proximity hospital.
We managed also to build primary and secondary school with more than 1500 students, midwifery, and nursing school where the students graduated every year and gone back to the villages to help the community, guest house for accommodation, conference Hall, solar station that gives power to the hospital, installing solar streetlights in Luvungi and other villages and centres of Uvira territory and many other activities that are being carried out at MHCD Headquarters every day. Dr. Luc Mulimbalimba managed to turn an extremely deserted land into a town centre. Through MHCD and Impact Radio, many separated families were re-joined, hope was restored, and communities were able to come together.
Radio Impact has contributed a lot to the development and evangelization of Uvira Territory. Radio Impact is one of the most listened to and loved radios in the east of the DRC and is the only radio that covers the entire territory of Uvira. We broadcast from Uvira Territory and even in other territories of the DRC and other neighbouring countries like Rwanda and Burundi. More than one million two hundred thousand people listen to Radio Impact every day. We broadcast in three languages, Swahili, French and Kifuliru which is the local language of Uvira. We have more than 130 radio clubs and in each club, there are more than 60 members including men, women, and young people. The clubs contribute to evangelisation and community development activities in their villages.
Through the radio impact broadcasts, many girls and women who were raped during the war have been following the testimonies of other women and they accepted to come to the hospital for treatment and are now in good health.
Radio Impact’s sensitisation has helped many orphaned and street children to come and study at the MHCD school, before joining the school, we helped them with counselling and many of them have finished secondary school and are now working.
